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Spare Rib, or Bald-rib

A roasted pork spare rib seasoned with sage, served with apple sauce and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Spare Rib, or Bald-rib

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. Joint the spare-rib and dredge it lightly with flour.

Roast

  1. Hang the rib to roast, ensuring the thickest end faces the heat.

  2. Roast at 350°F (175°C) for 1 to 1.25 hours, depending on thickness.

  3. Sprinkle powdered sage leaves over the rib 15 minutes before it's 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. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Flour + sagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork spare-rib
Provides the meat that cooks through and becomes tender with slow roasting.
Flour
Dry coating that helps the outside brown and form a light crust.
Powdered sage leaves
Adds a savoury, aromatic herb flavour to the roasted surface.
Apple sauce
Adds sweetness and acidity that balances the rich, fatty pork.

The step that matters

Sprinkling the sage 15 minutes before the end. Powdered herbs scorch and turn bitter under long, dry heat, so adding them late keeps their aroma fresh and their flavour clean.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

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