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Baked Meat

A pork roast stuffed with onions, breadcrumbs, and sage, then baked and served with gravy.

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 ↓

Baked Meat

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 stuffing

  1. Parboil the onions.

  2. Chop the onions finely.

  3. Mix the chopped onions with sage, breadcrumbs, and seasoning.

Stuff and roll the pork

  1. Bone the pork.

  2. Spread the pork flat on a board.

  3. Spread the forcemeat mixture evenly over the pork.

  4. Roll up the pork tightly.

  5. Tie the roll with string.

  6. Dredge the rolled pork with flour.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for one hour.

  2. Make gravy using stock made from the bones.

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. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Breast of pork
Forms the main body of the roast, which is rolled around the stuffing.
Onions
Add moisture and a mild sweetness to the forcemeat once parboiled and chopped.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the stuffing so it holds together when rolled.
Sage
Adds a savoury, herbal aroma that complements the pork.
Flour
Dries the outside of the roll so it can brown during baking.

The step that matters

Roll up the pork tightly. If the roll is loose, the stuffing can fall out and the roast may cook unevenly. A firm, even roll keeps the filling in place and gives a uniform shape for roasting.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, sage, pepper, flour):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sage, pepper, flour. 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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