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A Loin of Pork

A slow-roasted pork loin served with sage-and-onion sauce, apple sauce, and potatoes.

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

A Loin of Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the loin of pork with salad oil and score the crackling.

Roast and finish

  1. Hang the pork by the middle away from the fire to cook slowly for half the time.

  2. Baste the pork frequently to prevent burning.

  3. After half done, hang the pork by one end to finish cooking evenly.

  4. About 30 minutes before it's done, sprinkle with chopped or powdered sage leaves.

  5. Cook for nearly two hours total, then serve with sage-and-onion sauce, 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sage + potatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork loin
Forms the main meat; slow cooking keeps the lean roast tender and juicy.
Salad oil
Helps the skin brown and crisp and keeps the surface from drying out.
Sage leaves
Adds a herbal, aromatic flavour that pairs with the pork.

The step that matters

Basting and turning the pork. Basting keeps the surface moist and helps prevent scorching, while turning the roast from middle to end lets heat reach it evenly. Skipping either can leave the outside burnt and the inside unevenly cooked.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sage, onion, sauce, 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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