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To Roast a Suckling Pig

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

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 Roast a Suckling Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pig

  1. After scalding and preparing the pig, dry it thoroughly.

  2. Stuff the body with bread crumbs, sage, butter, salt, and pepper or cayenne, then sew it up securely.

  3. Truss the pig like a hare, with the forelegs skewered back and hind legs forward.

Roast

  1. Roast it over a strong clear fire, keeping a moderate distance to avoid scorching.

  2. Once warm, rub it with a bit of butter tied in cloth, repeating this while roasting.

  3. Place basins under the pig to catch the drippings as the gravy begins to drop.

  4. When the pig is a light amber brown and the steam draws towards the fire, dry it with a clean cloth and rub cold butter over it.

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

Serve

  1. When ready, place the pig on a very hot dish, remove the spit, and open the head.

  2. Chop the stuffing and brains together, mix with veal gravy, Madeira or sherry, and the drippings.

  3. Pour some gravy under the roast and serve the remainder hot in a tureen, seasoned with mace, cayenne, and lemon juice.

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 drippings and fat in the stuffing, keeping it moist and loosely textured.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and rubbed on the skin it promotes golden browning.
Sage
Adds a savoury, aromatic herbal flavour to the stuffing.
Veal gravy
Forms the thickened sauce that carries the flavour of the drippings and stuffing.
Madeira or sherry
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Keep the fire moderate and turn the pig steadily. A strong fire at close range scorches the skin before the thick body cooks through. Keeping a distance and rotating the spit lets heat penetrate evenly and the fat render slowly.

Swap the mace

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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