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Roast Pig

Roast pig with salt, pepper, sage, bread stuffing, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pig

  1. Rinse the pig in cold water and dry it thoroughly.

  2. Rub the inside with a mixture of coarse sea salt, black pepper, and sage if desired.

  3. Spread butter on one side of the bread slices. Sprinkle the buttered bread with salt, pepper, sage, and minced onion if desired. Moisten the bread with hot water.

  4. Fill the pig's body with the stuffing.

  5. Sew or tie the pig closed.

Roast

  1. Place the pig on a spit.

  2. Put a pint of water in the dripping pan with 1 tablespoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of pepper.

  3. Position the pig a little distance from the fire.

  4. Baste the pig as it roasts.

  5. Gradually move the pig closer to the fire.

  6. Cook the pig for about 15 minutes per pound.

  7. Check for doneness when the eyes drop out.

  8. Rub the pig with a cloth soaked in butter.

  9. Let the crackling crisp.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Dredge flour into the gravy.

  2. Boil the gravy.

  3. Add chopped heart and liver to the gravy.

  4. Serve.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Wheat + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig
Is the main meat, and its size and fat set the roasting time and drippings for the gravy.
Wheat bread
Soaks up moisture and fat to form a moist, savoury stuffing inside the body.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the skin brown and crisp and gives flavour to the bread and crackling.
Flour
Thickens the drippings into a smooth gravy.

The step that matters

Check for doneness when the eyes drop out. Thick meat near the bone can look done outside while stayed undercooked inside. Checking a clear sign of doneness helps avoid undercooked pork, so the cook should confirm with a thermometer as well.

Swap the sage

The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, wheat, bread, butter, onion, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, wheat, bread, butter, onion, flour. 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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