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Belly of Pork

A pork belly seasoned with sage, sweet herbs, minced shallots, and seasoning, then roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 181 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Belly of Pork

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.

Prepare

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

  2. Strew the inside of the pork belly thickly with sage, sweet herbs, minced shallots, and seasoning.

  3. Roll the belly tightly and tie it together.

Cook and serve

  1. Bake or roast the pork belly until cooked through.

  2. Serve cold and pressed if desired.

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 + shallottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together181 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

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

  3. Pork + shallottop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Belly of pork
Forms the main body of the dish and, as fat renders, keeps the meat moist and tender.
Sage
Adds a savoury, aromatic herb flavour that permeates the meat during roasting.
Sweet herbs
Contribute aromatic flavour that complements the pork and the sage.
Minced shallots
Add a mild sweet-savoury onion flavour that mellows and softens during cooking.

The step that matters

Roll the belly tightly and tie it together. A tight, even roll keeps the filling inside and gives the belly a uniform shape so it cooks evenly. Loose rolling lets the stuffing escape and creates uneven, dry or undercooked sections.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sage. 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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