Name: Roast Pig
Ingredients: light bread, soaked in milk; sage, boiled in water; onions, boiled in water; pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; 1 egg yolk; milk, for rubbing; butter, for rubbing; brown sauce, for serving

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 ↓

Roast Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the light bread in milk.
Boil the sage and onions in plenty of water, then strain and chop finely.
Press the milk from the bread and mix the sage and onion with pepper and salt.
Add the egg yolk to the bread mixture to bind it.
Stuff the mixture inside the pig.
Rub the pig with milk and butter, then wrap it in paper.
Roast the pig until beautifully brown.
Before removing from the spit, cut off the head and slice down the back to avoid breaking the skin.
Remove the spit, cut off the ears from the head, crack the bone, and remove the brains.
In a stewpan, combine the brains with the inside stuffing and a little brown sauce.
Dish the pig with the back facing up, place the sauce in the middle, and serve some in a boat with the ears at each end.

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.

Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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, milk, onion, pepper, egg, butter, sauce):

Parsleyfits better
Capersfits better
Nutmegfits better
Sagethe original

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