Skip to main content
Main

Roast Pig

A whole pig roasted with a dressing of onion, butter, and spices, served with gravy and garnishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 for fowls by adding half an onion, chopped fine, and set it aside.

  2. Wash the pig thoroughly inside and outside.

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

  4. Wipe the pig dry with a fresh towel.

  5. Salt the inside of the pig.

  6. Stuff the pig with the prepared dressing.

  7. Sew the pig up.

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

  9. Tie the pig's legs in position.

  10. Pour a little hot salted water into the dripping pan.

Roast

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

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

  3. Roast the pig for 2 to 3 hours, basting occasionally.

Make the gravy

  1. Skim off most of the grease from the drippings.

  2. Stir in flour.

  3. Add water to achieve the right consistency.

  4. Season the gravy with pepper.

  5. Let the gravy boil once.

  6. Strain the gravy.

  7. Add wine if desired.

Serve and carve

  1. 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.

  2. Cut off the pig's head first.

  3. Split down the back.

  4. Remove the hams and shoulders.

  5. Separate the 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

Butter
Fat that browns and crisps the skin while keeping the surface moist as it roasts.
Flour
Thickens the drippings into a smooth gravy as it cooks with the liquid.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor to the dressing that is stuffed into the pig.
Wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavor to the gravy.

The step that matters

Rubbing the skin with melted butter once it starts to smoke. Fat and frequent basting keep the skin from drying out, which helps it brown and turn crisp. If the skin dries or is left unbasted, it tends to turn tough and leathery instead of crackling.

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.

More roast pig recipes

Stuffed 3 See all 115 →

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipesCelery Cream SoupCelery Cream Soup15 recipes