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Griskin, or Spare Rib of Pork, a LA Soubise

A spare rib of pork cooked with a butter‑onion sauce thickened with flour and beef stock, finished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Griskin, or Spare Rib of Pork, a LA Soubise

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 the sauce

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

  2. In a skillet, melt the butter and sauté the onion until golden.

  3. Add the flour and stir for 1 minute.

  4. Gradually add the beef stock, stirring until thickened.

  5. Season with salt and pepper.

Roast and serve

  1. Place the spare rib in a roasting pan, pour the sauce over it, and cover with foil.

  2. Roast for 1.5 to 2 hours, basting occasionally.

  3. Serve garnished with chopped parsley.

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 + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Spare rib of pork
Forms the main piece of meat, becoming tender and juicy during long, covered roasting.
Onion
Sweetens and adds savory depth to the sauce as it browns in the butter.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavor and adds richness to the sauce base.
Beef stock
Provides the liquid that becomes the sauce and moistens the meat as it roasts.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce that clings to the meat.

The step that matters

Thickening the stock with flour. Flour must be cooked briefly in the butter before the stock goes in, then the stock added gradually while stirring. Adding it all at once or skipping the stir can leave lumps and a raw, pasty taste.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, onion, butter, beef, pepper, flour):

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, onion, butter, beef, pepper, flour. 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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