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Boiled Leg of Pork

A large leg of pork is salted, cured, then boiled for several hours until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,772 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Boiled Leg of Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Cure

  1. Rub the leg of pork well with coarse sea salt.

  2. Let it sit in the salt for 7 to 10 days, turning and rubbing it daily.

Boil

  1. Soak the pork in cold water for an hour before cooking.

  2. Place the pork in a large pot and cover it with cold water.

  3. Bring the water to a slow boil, skimming off any scum that rises.

  4. Reduce the heat and simmer gently for about 3 hours, or until tender, ensuring it does not boil rapidly.

  5. If desired, add carrots, turnips, or parsnips to the pot for the last part of cooking and use them as a garnish.

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. Pork + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,772 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pork leg
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and moist as it simmers slowly.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during the multi-day cure.

The step that matters

Simmer gently without a rapid boil. A rapid boil toughens meat proteins and churns the surface, so a slow simmer keeps the pork tender and clear.

“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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