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Sucking-pig

A roasted or baked sucking pig stuffed with butter, fat, parsley, green onions, mushrooms, and onions, served with remoulade or vinaigrette sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sucking-pig

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Skewer the cleaned sucking pig and stuff it with the fat mixture of butter, parsley, green onions, mushrooms, and onions.

Roast

  1. Place the pig on a spit before a good fire and baste it first with melted butter, then with drippings.

  2. For baking, stuff the pig as above, place it in a baking pan with enough cold water to cover the bottom.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven, basting often until done.

Serve

  1. Insert a small red apple in the mouth after cooking, using a stone to keep it open during cooking.

  2. Serve with a remoulade or vinaigrette sauce, garnished with slices of truffles, mushrooms, and parsley.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 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
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the skin brown when basted over heat.
Fat
Keeps the stuffing moist and rich, and bastes the meat as it cooks.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the stuffing as they cook.
White onions
Perfume the meat from inside as they soften and release their sweetness.

The step that matters

Basting often in the oven. Regular basting with fat and drippings keeps the surface from drying out and helps it turn golden and crisp. Without it, the skin can toughen while the inside is still cooking.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, mushroom, clove, pepper. 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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