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Roasting Meat

A roasted leg of pork served with sage and onion sauce, apple sauce, mustard, and boiled potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Roasting Meat

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.

Roast the pork

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Roast the leg of pork for about 3 hours, ensuring the crackling is crisp and not burnt.

Serve

  1. Serve the roast with sage and onion sauce, apple sauce, and mustard.

  2. Accompany with plenty of nicely boiled 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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

  5. Sage + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of pork
Forms the main roast, and its fat and skin turn the outside crisp and browned during roasting.
Sage and onion sauce
Adds savoury, herbal moisture to balance the rich, fatty meat.
Apple sauce
Adds sweetness and acidity that cut through the richness of the pork.
Mustard
Adds sharp heat and acidity that contrast with the fatty pork.
Boiled potatoes
Provide a soft, starchy side that soaks up the meat juices and sauces.

The step that matters

Keeping the crackling crisp. Crackling needs dry, high heat to puff and crisp; moisture or overcooking can make it soft or burnt. Check it during the roast and adjust so the skin browns without scorching.

Swap the apple

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

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

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