Skip to main content
Main

Roast Pig

Roast Pig is a whole pig roasted with a dressing, butter, and optional wine, 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 the pig

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

  2. Wash the pig inside and out.

  3. Wipe the pig dry with a fresh towel.

  4. Salt the inside of the pig.

  5. Stuff the pig with the prepared dressing.

  6. Sew the pig up.

  7. Place the pig in a kneeling posture in a roasting pan.

  8. 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 pig often with a rag dipped in melted butter to keep the skin crisp.

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

Make the gravy

  1. Skim off most of the grease from the roasting pan.

  2. Stir in flour to the pan.

  3. Add water to the pan to achieve the right 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. Place the pig on a large, hot platter.

  2. Garnish the pig with parsley or celery tops.

  3. Decorate the pig with a green wreath and a sprig of celery.

  4. Cut off the head of the pig.

  5. Split the pig down the back.

  6. Remove the hams and shoulders.

  7. 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

Young pig
Is the main body of the dish, cooked whole so the skin and meat roast together.
Butter
Coats the skin during roasting, promoting browning and crispness while adding richness.
Flour
Thickens the defatted pan juices into a gravy.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor to the stuffing dressing.
Baking soda
Raises the pH of the skin, which can help it brown and crisp.

The step that matters

Keeping the skin crisp while roasting. Rubbing the skin often with melted butter keeps it moist and promotes browning, while regular basting keeps the meat from drying out during the long roast. Skin left unbasted can dry and toughen.

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