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Stuffing for Sucking Pigs

A savory stuffing made with onion, herbs, eggs, and lard, formed into balls and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stuffing for Sucking Pigs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Finely shred the onion, parsley, lemon thyme, and pennyroyal, then add salt, white pepper, nutmeg, and mace to taste.

  2. Beat the fresh egg yolks and whites separately until combined, then mix with the shredded ingredients to form a moist paste.

  3. Roll the mixture into small balls.

Fry and drain

  1. Heat fresh lard in a pan until boiling, then carefully add the balls.

  2. Fry until they are light brown, then remove and drain on paper towels.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh eggs
Bind the shredded herbs and onion into a moist paste that holds its shape.
Fresh lard
Conducts heat for frying and gives the balls a rich, browned surface.
Onion
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the stuffing paste.

The step that matters

Frying the balls in boiling lard. Lard that is too hot browns the outside before the centre cooks through, while lard that is not hot enough lets the balls absorb grease and turn heavy. Frying steadily until light brown keeps them cooked and crisp.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white pepper, nutmeg, mace, parsley, lemon, thyme, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white pepper, nutmeg, mace, parsley, lemon, thyme, egg. 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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