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Roasting Meat

A roast pork served with sage and onion sauce, apple sauce, mustard, and boiled potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Roasting Meat

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Roast the pork

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Roast the pork for three hours, making sure the crackling is crisp and not burnt.

Serve

  1. Serve the roast pork with sage and onion sauce, apple sauce, and mustard.

  2. Accompany with plenty of nicely boiled 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

  5. Sage + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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; roasting browns and firms its outer surface.
Sage and onion sauce
Adds savoury, aromatic flavour that complements the roasted meat.
Apple sauce
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the richness of the pork.
Boiled potatoes
Provides a starchy side that soaks up the sauces and fills the plate.

The step that matters

Getting the crackling crisp, not burnt. Crackling forms when the skin dries and its fat renders, so it turns crisp. If the surface over-browns, the sugars and proteins scorch and turn bitter, so check it during the three hours.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sage, onion, sauce, mustard, 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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