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Sauce

Sauce for Sucking-pig

A sauce made from boiled French roll, onion, salt, pig brains, pig gravy, butter, lemon juice, and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Sauce for Sucking-pig

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the inside of the French roll with the onion and salt until it becomes a pulp.

  2. Chop the brains and mix them with the gravy from the pig in a teacup.

  3. In a saucepan, combine butter, lemon juice, and white wine.

  4. Add the boiled roll mixture to the saucepan and stir until well combined.

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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

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

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

French roll
Breaks down into a pulp that thickens the sauce and gives it body.
Brains from the pig
Adds a rich, creamy texture that enriches the sauce.
Gravy from the pig
Contributes meaty flavor and moisture to the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to balance the richness.
Lemon juice
Brightens the sauce with acidity that cuts through the fat.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, sauce, white wine):

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, sauce, white wine. 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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