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Roast Pig

A whole pig roasted on a spit with salt, pepper, sage, and bread stuffing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Prepare

  1. Rub the inside of the pig with a mixture of salt, pepper, and sage if desired.

  2. Make stuffing by spreading butter on one side of the bread slices, sprinkling with salt, pepper, sage, and minced onion if desired.

  3. Moisten the bread with hot water, fill the pig's body with the stuffing, and sew or tie it closed.

Roast

  1. Place the pig on a spit, add 1 pint of water to the dripping pan, and mix in 1 tablespoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of pepper.

  2. Position the pig a little distance from the fire, baste it as it roasts, and gradually move it closer.

  3. Baste occasionally and turn the pig for even cooking.

  4. Cook for 15 minutes per pound of meat, or until the eyes drop out.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  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
Absorbs moisture and steams inside the pig, keeping the stuffing soft and flavourful.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps the bread brown lightly.
Sage
Adds aromatic herbal flavour to the meat and stuffing.

The step that matters

Position the pig a little distance from the fire. Starting too close to the fire can scorch the skin before the thick meat cooks through. Moving the pig gradually closer lets heat penetrate evenly while the surface browns.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, wheat, bread, butter, onion. 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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