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Saddle of Pork

A roasted saddle of pork coated with yolks, bread crumbs, herbs, and spices, served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage 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 ↓

Saddle of Pork

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Start the roast

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cut the saddle of pork like a saddle of mutton.

  3. Roast it with the rind on.

  4. Remove the crackling.

  5. Serve with tomato sauce.

Prepare the meat

  1. Simmer the best end of the joint until nearly cooked.

  2. Strip off the skin.

  3. Wet the meat with yolks of eggs.

  4. Cover it with bread crumbs, chopped sweet herbs, and chives.

  5. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  6. Roast for about 1 hour until browned.

Stuff and roast

  1. Bone the meat.

  2. Fill it with a mixture of chopped sage, a few bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and allspice berries.

  3. Roll tightly.

  4. Roast slowly, keeping it at a distance from the fire.

  5. Parboil before adding herbs.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Chive + sagetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together66 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + chivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together538 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Saddle of pork
Is the main meat, which browns and firms as it roasts.
Yolks of eggs
Bind the crumb coating and help it set and brown in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust and soak up the meat's juices.
Sage
Adds a savoury, aromatic flavour to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Roast slowly, away from the fire. Gentle, indirect heat cooks the thick joint through evenly while the coating browns. Intense direct heat would scorch the crumbs and crackling before the centre is cooked.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, tomato, sauce, egg, bread, chive, pepper):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, tomato, sauce, egg, bread, chive, pepper. 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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