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Sucking Pigs

A whole pig stuffed with sage, salt, pepper, and bread, then roasted over a fire and basted with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sucking Pigs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and stuff

  1. Stuff the belly of the pig with sage, salt, pepper, and brown bread.

  2. Sew up the belly and place the pig on a spit over a brisk fire.

  3. Hang a pig plate in the middle to ensure even cooking.

Roast and baste

  1. Once warm, rub the pig with butter frequently while roasting.

  2. When browned, dry the pig with a clean cloth and rub with cold butter to crisp the skin.

Carve and serve

  1. After roasting, cut off the head, collar, ears, and jawbone.

  2. Split the jaw in two and arrange the pig on a serving dish with the back parts facing each other.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sage + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sage + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pig
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole and carved for serving.
Sage
Adds aromatic herbal flavour to the stuffing inside the belly.
Brown bread
Soaks up juices in the stuffing, adding moisture and a soft texture.
Butter
Basting fat that promotes browning and helps crisp the skin.

The step that matters

Drying and rubbing the skin with cold butter after browning. Moisture on the skin turns to steam and keeps it soft, so drying it well before rubbing in butter helps the skin crisp.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, bread, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Sagethe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, bread, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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