Name: To Roast a Sucking-pig
Ingredients: sage; 1 large piece of white bread; coarse sea salt; black pepper; 1 onion; butter; flour

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 ↓

To Roast a Sucking-pig

Ingredients

Directions

Stuff the belly of the pig with sage, white bread, salt, pepper, and onion, then sew it up.
Skewer the legs back to ensure the underpart crisps.
Place the pig by a brisk fire until thoroughly dry.
Rub the pig all over with butter using a dry cloth.
Dredge flour over the pig until well coated, then do not touch it again until serving.
Carefully scrape off the flour with a blunt knife or coarse towel.
Rub the pig with a buttered cloth before serving.

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.

Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,628 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the onion

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

Shallotfits better
Capsicumfits better
Sweet potatofits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, bread, pepper, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.