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Roast Pig

A whole young pig roasted with onion dressing, butter, and seasoning, served with gravy and garnishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Roast Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare dressing as for 'Dressing for Fowls,' adding chopped onion.

  2. Wash the pig thoroughly inside and out.

  3. Rinse the pig with water mixed with baking soda.

  4. Wipe the pig dry.

  5. Salt the inside of the pig.

  6. Stuff the pig with the dressing.

  7. Sew the pig up.

  8. Place the pig in a kneeling position in a dripping pan.

  9. Tie the pig's legs.

Roast

  1. Pour a little hot salted water into the pan.

  2. Baste the pig with butter and water as it warms.

  3. Rub the skin with a rag dipped in melted butter to keep it crisp.

  4. Roast for 2 to 3 hours, basting regularly.

Make the gravy

  1. Skim off excess grease from the pan.

  2. Stir in flour to make gravy.

  3. Add water to the gravy to desired consistency.

  4. Season the gravy with pepper.

  5. Let the gravy boil once.

  6. Strain the gravy.

  7. Add wine to the gravy if desired.

Serve

  1. Serve the gravy in a gravy boat.

  2. Serve the pig on a large, hot platter, garnished with parsley or celery tops, a green wreath around the neck, and a sprig of celery in its mouth.

Carve

  1. Cut off the pig's head first.

  2. Split the pig down the back.

  3. Remove the hams, shoulders, and ribs.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Young pig
Is the whole main dish, so its size and age set the roasting time and texture.
Butter
Basting fat that keeps the skin and meat moist while it browns and crisps.
Flour
Thickens the pan drippings into gravy.
Baking soda
Rinse water with baking soda is used to clean the skin of the pig.
Onion
Adds aroma and savory flavor to the dressing stuffed inside the pig.

The step that matters

Rub the skin with melted butter. Fat coats the skin so it can brown and crisp in the oven. Skin left dry or unbasted can turn tough and leathery during a long roast.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, wine, parsley, celery):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, wine, parsley, celery. 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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