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Roast Pig

A whole young pig roasted with a fowl-style dressing, butter, and seasonings, 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 the dressing as for fowl, adding half a chopped onion.

  2. Wash the pig thoroughly inside and out, then rinse the inside with water mixed with baking soda.

  3. Wipe the pig dry, salt the inside, and stuff it with the dressing.

  4. Sew the pig up and place it in a kneeling position in a roasting pan, tying the legs in place.

Roast

  1. Pour a little hot salted water into the pan and baste with butter and water as the pig warms.

  2. Once it begins to smoke, rub the skin with a rag dipped in melted butter to keep it crisp.

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

Make the gravy and serve

  1. To make gravy, skim off excess grease, stir in flour, and add water to achieve the right consistency.

  2. Season with pepper and let the gravy boil once, then strain and add wine if desired.

  3. 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.

  4. When carving, cut off the head first, then split down the back, and remove the hams and shoulders.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

What each ingredient does

Pig
Forms the whole dish; its skin crisps during roasting while the meat cooks through.
Butter
Basting fat that browns and crisps the skin and enriches the pan juices for gravy.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into gravy as it cooks with the fat.
Baking soda
Raises the pH of the rinse water, which can help the skin brown and crisp.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the gravy.

The step that matters

Rubbing the skin with butter once it begins to smoke. Fat applied as the skin heats helps it brown and crisp. If the skin is left dry or the fat is added too early, it can scorch or stay leathery, so timing matters.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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