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Roast Pig

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

  1. Clean the pig thoroughly and rinse it in cold water.

  2. Wipe the pig dry and rub the inside with a mixture of coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. If desired, add a little pounded and sifted sage.

  4. For the stuffing, cut wheat bread into ½-inch thick slices.

  5. Spread butter on half of each slice of bread.

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. Sage + wheattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together57 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

Swap the sage

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, wheat, bread, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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