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To Roast a Leg of Pork

A roasted leg of pork stuffed with onion, sage, breadcrumbs, pepper, salt, and egg yolk, finished with sweet oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper 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 ↓

To Roast a Leg of Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the leg

  1. Score the skin of the leg of pork in narrow strips, forming diamonds if desired.

  2. Rub powdered sage into the scored skin.

  3. Lift the skin at the knuckle and stuff it with minced onion, sage, bread crumbs, pepper, salt, and beaten egg yolk.

  4. Secure the skin with buttered string or skewers.

  5. Make deep incisions in the large end of the leg and stuff them, pressing the filling in firmly.

  6. Brush the skin with sweet oil to achieve a crisp, golden brown finish.

Roast

  1. Roast the leg of pork for 3 to 4 hours.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Absorb juices from the meat and give the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Egg yolk
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when the leg is carved.
Sweet oil
Conducts heat to the skin and promotes browning for a crisp, golden finish.
Minced onion
Adds moisture and savoury sweetness to the stuffing as it cooks.
Powdered sage
Contributes its herbal aroma to both the skin and the stuffing.

The step that matters

Brush the skin with sweet oil. Oil helps the surface brown and crisp by conducting heat and supporting browning reactions. Surface moisture slows crisping, so the skin should be dry before brushing and the oil applied evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, sage, bread, pepper, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sage, bread, pepper, egg. 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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