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Pork Stuffing

A savory onion and breadcrumb stuffing for pork, flavored with sage, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Pork Stuffing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Slice the onions and cover them with cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes, then strain and drain well.

Make the stuffing

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and fry the onions for about 15 minutes without browning.

  2. Add the breadcrumbs, sage, salt, and pepper, and mix well.

  3. Use as required.

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

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

  3. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sagetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,312 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

Onions
Soft, sweet body that forms the bulk of the stuffing when cooked gently.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb the butter and onion juices, giving the stuffing body and a light, crumbly texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and carries the sage flavour through the stuffing.
Sage
Provides the herbal, aromatic flavour that defines this stuffing.

The step that matters

Frying the onions without browning. Frying gently over moderate heat for about 15 minutes softens the onions and draws out their sweetness. Browning would make them bitter and change the mild flavour of the stuffing.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sage, pepper. 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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