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To Roast a Sucking Pig

A roasted suckling pig seasoned with sage, breadcrumbs, coarse sea salt, black pepper, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

To Roast a Sucking Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pig

  1. Scald the pig if not already done.

  2. Stuff the belly with sage, breadcrumbs, coarse sea salt, and black pepper, then sew it up.

  3. Skewer the legs back to ensure the underpart crisps.

Roast

  1. Place the pig over a brisk fire until thoroughly dry.

  2. Rub the pig all over with butter using a dry cloth.

  3. Dredge flour over the pig and do not touch it again until serving.

  4. Remove the head while at the fire.

  5. Take out the brains.

Finish and serve

  1. Carefully scrape off the flour with a blunt knife before serving.

  2. Rub the pig again with the buttered cloth.

  3. Mix the brains with the gravy from the pig.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sage + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,312 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Rubbed over the skin, it promotes browning and a golden, crisp surface.
Flour
Dredged over the dried skin, it forms a crust that helps the surface crisp and brown.
Breadcrumbs
Stuffed in the belly, they soak up juices and add body to the filling.
Sage
Stuffed in the belly, it adds aroma that infuses the meat during roasting.

The step that matters

Drying the pig thoroughly before roasting. Moisture on the skin turns to steam and prevents crisping, so the pig must be fully dry before it is rubbed with butter and flour for a crackling surface.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Turmericfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, 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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