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Roasting Meat

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Roasting Meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stuff the pig and wipe the outside with salad oil or fresh butter.

  2. Cover the loins with greased parchment paper and hang it over a good fire.

  3. Direct more heat to the rump and shoulders as they need more cooking.

  4. Baste frequently with sweet dripping to prevent blistering.

  5. About 20 minutes before it's done, remove the paper and baste with a little butter.

  6. Serve the pig with the sides laid back to back, half the head on each side, and one ear at each end, crackling side up.

  7. Garnish with lemon slices and serve with rich gravy and either brain sauce or bread sauce.

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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + saucetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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

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