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A roasted and stewed pork leg stuffed with bread crumbs, apple, and sage, served with gravy, forcemeat balls, and lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and stuff

  1. Score the skin of the leg of pork.

  2. Mix the bread crumbs, chopped apple, and chopped sage to create stuffing.

  3. Stuff the leg of pork with the mixture.

Roast and stew

  1. Roast the pork until three-quarters done.

  2. Transfer the pork to a stewpan with weak broth and let it stew until fully cooked.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy if desired and serve with forcemeat balls and slices of lemon.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + sagetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Apple + sagetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

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

  4. Pork + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,445 recipes

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

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

Leg of pork
Provides the main meat that becomes tender and juicy during slow cooking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and give the stuffing a soft, moist body.
Apple
Adds moisture and a mild sweetness that balances the rich pork.
Sage
Contributes a savory, aromatic herbal flavor to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Transfer the pork to a stewpan with weak broth and let it stew until fully cooked.. Pork finished by gentle stewing in liquid stays moist, while overcooking at high heat dries the meat. Finishing it slowly and checking that it is fully cooked keeps the texture tender and safe.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits about as well
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Applethe original
  4. Limefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, mustard, vinegar, bread, 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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