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Roast Leg of Pork

Roast leg of pork stuffed with bread crumbs, sage, onion, pepper, and salt, baked until cooked, served with apple sauce and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Roast Leg of 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Cut a slit in the knuckle of the pork leg and fill it with bread crumbs, sage, onion, pepper, and salt.

Roast

  1. Roast the pork until half done, then score the skin in slices without cutting deeper than the outer rind.

  2. Baste the spare rib with butter and flour, then sprinkle with bread crumbs, sage, salt, and pepper.

  3. Add the bread crumbs when the roast is partly done.

Serve

  1. Serve with apple sauce and potatoes.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 cut of meat that is roasted and served as the centrepiece.
Bread crumbs
Stuffing and coating that absorb juices and form a crisp, browned crust on the outside.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour and helps the surface brown and turn golden in the oven.
Flour
Mixed with butter for basting, helping the coating brown and thicken slightly.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and moisture to the stuffing as it softens during roasting.

The step that matters

Scoring the skin without cutting deeper than the outer rind. Cutting into the meat lets juices escape and dries the roast. Shallow scoring only through the skin lets fat render and the crackling crisp while the meat stays moist.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, bread, sage, 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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