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Eaked Meats, &C

A roasted pig served with a sauce made from water, onion, spices, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Eaked Meats, &C

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.

Prepare the pig

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

  2. Butter a dish and lay the pig in it.

  3. Flour the pig and rub it with butter.

  4. Bake the pig until done, then remove it and rub it with a buttered cloth.

  5. Return it to the oven to dry.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine water, onion, mace, whole pepper, cloves, and a bunch of sweet herbs; boil the broth with sage.

  2. Strain the mixture and return it to the saucepan.

  3. Add butter rolled in flour, chopped sweet herbs, sage, ketchup, and red wine; boil for 1 minute.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the pig and serve hot.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + sagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pig
Is the main cut of meat that is roasted and carries the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the surface brown and dry during roasting.
Breadcrumbs
Adds body and texture to the dish.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth to the sauce.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and tang to the sauce.

The step that matters

Return the pig to the oven to dry. Drying the rubbed surface after the buttered cloth helps it crisp and brown rather than steam, so the skin or exterior turns golden.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, nutmeg, lemon, pepper, mace, clove, sage):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, nutmeg, lemon, pepper, mace, clove, 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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