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To Eoast a Sucking Pig

A roasted suckling pig stuffed with bread crumbs, sage, butter, and seasoning, served with veal gravy and Madeira or sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 887 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

To Eoast a Sucking Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pig

  1. Scald the pig.

  2. Prepare the pig for the spit.

  3. Dry the pig thoroughly.

  4. Stuff the body with bread crumbs, sage, butter, salt, and pepper or cayenne.

  5. Sew the pig up.

  6. Truss the pig with fore legs skewered back and hind legs forward.

Roast

  1. Roast the pig over a strong, clear fire at a moderate distance to avoid scorching.

  2. Once warm, rub the pig with butter using a cloth, repeating this while roasting.

  3. Place basins under the pig to catch the dripping gravy.

  4. When the pig is light amber brown and steaming, dry it with a clean cloth.

  5. Rub the pig with cold butter.

  6. Halfway through cooking, hang a large flat iron in the center of the grate to ensure even cooking.

Carve and serve

  1. When ready, place the pig in a very hot dish.

  2. Remove the spit.

  3. Open the head.

  4. Split the body in two.

  5. Chop the stuffing and brains.

  6. Mix the stuffing and brains with veal gravy and Madeira or sherry.

  7. Pour some gravy under the meat.

  8. Serve the rest hot in a tureen.

  9. Add mace, cayenne, and lemon juice if desired.

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 + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Absorb butter and drippings, forming a moist, savory stuffing inside the body.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness, and helps the skin brown as it is rubbed on during roasting.
Sage
Adds aromatic, herbal flavor to the stuffing that permeates the rich meat.
Veal gravy
Moistens the chopped stuffing and brains and forms the sauce served with the pig.
Madeira or sherry
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the gravy.

The step that matters

Roasting at a moderate distance from the fire. A fire that is too close scorches the skin before the thick meat cooks through, while basting and turning keep the skin evenly browned and moist.

Swap the mace

The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sage, butter, pepper, veal, sherry, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sage, butter, pepper, veal, sherry, lemon. 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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