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Roast Leg of Pork

A roasted pork leg seasoned with salt, sage, and tomato ketchup, served with apple sauce and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Leg of Pork

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and roast

  1. Score the skin of the leg with a sharp knife in parallel lines about ½ inch apart.

  2. Place the leg in a baking pan.

  3. Add salt and boiling water to the pan.

  4. Roast in a very hot oven (400°F) for 20 minutes, basting every 5 minutes.

  5. Reduce the heat to moderate (350°F) and roast for 25 minutes per pound, basting every 10 minutes with its own gravy.

Make the gravy

  1. For the gravy, leave 2 tablespoons of fat in the pan.

  2. Add flour to the fat and brown well.

  3. Stir in boiling water and cook until it boils.

  4. Season the gravy with salt, pepper, sage, and tomato ketchup.

  5. Strain the gravy and serve in a boat.

Serve

  1. When done, dish the leg and garnish with parsley.

  2. Serve the leg with apple sauce and horseradish.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork leg
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and juicy during long, slow roasting.
Fat
Carries heat into the pan and adds richness to the gravy base.
Flour
Thickens the gravy once browned in the fat.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the seasoned gravy.
Sage
Adds a savoury, aromatic herbal flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in the fat. Cooking flour in fat until well browned develops a nutty, deeper flavour and removes raw starch taste before liquid is added. Stirring in boiling water then helps prevent lumps and lets the gravy thicken smoothly.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Applethe original

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