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New Year Sucking Pig

A roast suckling pig seasoned with salt, lemon or apple, lard, beer, bacon, served with red cabbage and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and potato work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 275 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

New Year Sucking Pig

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the pig

  1. Clean and wash the suckling pig thoroughly.

  2. Dry it well.

  3. Salt the inside.

  4. Peg out the stomach cavity with small sticks.

  5. Place the pig in a large pan.

  6. Press its mouth open to insert a lemon or apple.

  7. Grease the ears and legs well.

  8. Cover them with white paper.

Roast and baste

  1. Pour hot lard over the entire pig.

  2. Roast it slowly in a preheated oven at 300°F (150°C).

  3. Place a small pot of beer on the stove.

  4. Use a thick piece of bacon dipped in the beer to baste the pig often until the skin becomes red and crisp.

Serve

  1. Serve with red cabbage 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. Cabbage + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together275 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + potatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Lemon + cabbagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together397 recipes

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

  4. Beer + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Lemon + beertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together270 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sucking pig
Provides the meat, whose fat and skin cook down during the slow roast.
Lard
Coats the skin with fat, helping it brown and crisp in the oven.
Beer
Used for basting, its liquid and sugars help the skin brown and turn red.
Bacon
Carries beer onto the skin as a basting tool, adding fat and savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Basting until the skin is red and crisp. Skin needs fat and repeated moisture during slow roasting. Basting keeps it from drying and helps the surface brown, while the ears and legs are protected by paper to avoid burning.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beer, cabbage, potato):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beer, cabbage, potato. 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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