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Sucking Pigs

A whole pig roasted with sage, salt, pepper, bread crust, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Sucking Pigs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pig

  1. Prepare the pig for dressing by placing sage, salt, black pepper, and brown bread inside its belly.

  2. Sew up the belly and place the pig on a spit over a brisk, clear fire.

  3. Hang a pig plate in the middle to ensure even cooking.

Roast

  1. Once warm, rub the pig with butter using a cloth while roasting.

  2. When it turns a fine brown, dry it with a clean cloth and rub with cold butter to crisp it.

Carve and serve

  1. After roasting, place the pig in a dish, cut off the head, and remove the collar, ears, and jawbone.

  2. Split the jaw in two and cut the pig down the back before removing the spit.

  3. Arrange the two sides with the back parts facing each other, placing a jaw on each side and an ear on each shoulder.

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. Pepper + breadtop 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

What each ingredient does

Pig
Is the main cut of meat that is roasted and carved for serving.
Butter
Rubbed on the skin, it adds fat that helps the surface brown and crisp.
Brown bread
Placed inside the belly as a stuffing that absorbs juices and adds flavor.
Sage
Stuffed into the belly to add a herbal aroma to the meat.

The step that matters

Drying and crisping the skin. Patting the skin dry before rubbing it with cold butter helps it turn crisp rather than soft. Moisture on the surface steams the skin and slows browning, so the surface must be dry before the final roasting.

Swap the sage

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

  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 pepper, bread, butter. 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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