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Stew of Sucking Pig

A stew made with a young pig, lard, tomato, onions, green peppers, potatoes or tarhonya, coarse sea salt, and paprika.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stew of Sucking Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Fry chopped onions in lard until translucent.

  2. Add cleaned and chopped pig meat and season with coarse sea salt.

  3. Stir in a generous amount of red paprika, the whole tomato cut in half, and green peppers.

  4. Cook slowly and carefully to prevent burning.

Serve

  1. Serve with boiled potatoes or tarhonya cooked in salted water.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pork (in the method)
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow cooking.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook in lard, building the base flavour.
Lard
Fat for frying the onions and adds richness to the stew.
Red paprika
Gives colour and a sweet, earthy flavour to the stew.
Tomato
Adds moisture and acidity that help form the stew's sauce.
Green peppers
Add a fresh, slightly bitter vegetable flavour as they cook down.

The step that matters

Cook slowly and carefully to prevent burning. Paprika scorches easily at high heat and turns bitter, so keeping the heat low and stirring helps keep the stew sweet and deeply coloured.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, 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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