Skip to main content

To Roast a Sucking Pig

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sage and pepper 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 ↓

To Roast a Sucking Pig

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare a large kettle of boiling water.

  2. Powder the rosin and set aside.

  3. In a clean, grease-free tub, place the boiling water.

  4. Submerge the pig headfirst in the boiling water until the hair loosens.

  5. Remove the pig and lay it on a table.

  6. Sprinkle a handful of powdered rosin over one side and remove the hair.

  7. Turn the pig over, sprinkle more rosin, and remove the remaining hair.

  8. Place the cleaned pig in cold water, wash, and dry it with a coarse cloth.

  9. Open the pig slightly and remove the entrails.

  10. Wipe the inside with a wet cloth, then a dry cloth; do not wash it.

  11. Cut off two joints of the legs and set aside.

  12. Make stuffing by mixing sage, bread crumbs, butter, and pepper.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sage + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Sage + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Sagethe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes