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To Loll Pork

A leg of pork that is boiled until very tender, then stuffed with sage and onion and roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,214 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Loll Pork

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Boil the pork

  1. Boil the leg of pork for about two hours until very tender.

Roast and serve

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) for roasting.

  2. Stuff the knuckle with chopped sage and onion.

  3. Roast the leg of pork (12 pounds) for three hours.

  4. Serve with pea pudding, savoys, or any greens.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sage + oniontop 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

Leg of pork
Long moist boiling breaks down tough connective tissue, leaving the meat tender and juicy.
Sage
Adds a savory, herbal aroma to the meat as it roasts.
Onion
Adds aroma and a mild sweetness that perfumes the meat from inside the knuckle.

The step that matters

Boil until very tender. Slow, moist heat converts tough collagen in the pork into gelatin, which is what makes the meat tender. If the boil is cut short, the meat stays tough, and the long roast that follows cannot fix it.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, onion. 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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