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To Roast a Leg of Pork

A roasted leg of pork seasoned with sage, onion, pepper, and salt, served with apple sauce and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

To Roast a Leg of Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and roast

  1. Cut a slit in the knuckle of the pork and fill it with sage, chopped onion, pepper, and salt.

  2. Roast the pork until half done, then score the skin in slices without cutting deeper than the outer rind.

Serve

  1. Serve with apple sauce and potatoes.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork
Forms the main body of the dish, and its fat and connective tissue keep the meat moist as it cooks.
Sage
Adds a savory, herbal aroma that flavors the meat from inside the joint.
Onion
Softens and releases moisture and sweetness into the meat as it roasts inside the cut.
Apple sauce
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the rich, fatty flavor of the pork.

The step that matters

Scoring the skin without cutting deeper than the outer rind. Cutting into the meat lets juices escape, which dries the joint. Scoring only the rind lets fat render through the skin, helping it crisp while the meat stays juicy.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, sage, onion, pepper, sauce, potato):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sage, onion, pepper, sauce, potato. 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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