Name: Spare Rib, or Bald-rib
Ingredients: 6 to 8 pounds spare ribs or bald ribs; flour for dredging; powdered sage leaves; apple sauce for serving; potatoes for serving

Why it works: Sage and apple work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 755 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Spare Rib, or Bald-rib

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Joint the spare ribs and dredge lightly with flour.

Roast

Hang the ribs to roast over a moderate brisk fire, with the thickest end closest to the fire.
Roast for 1 to 1.25 hours for thin ribs, or longer for thicker ones.
Fifteen minutes before done, sprinkle with powdered sage leaves.

Serve

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.

Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together755 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Sage + potatotop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together386 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Flour + sagetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,115 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Apple + potatotop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together603 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,355 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Spare ribs: Main meat; the flour dredge helps the surface brown and crisp as it roasts.
Flour: Light dredge that helps the outside of the ribs brown and develop a crust.
Powdered sage leaves: Adds a savoury, aromatic herb flavour to the outside of the ribs.