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Roast Little Pig

A roasted piglet stuffed with seasoned potatoes and liver, served with cranberries, lemon, parsley, and apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Little Pig

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pig

  1. Wash and scrape the pig thoroughly.

  2. Rub the inside and the outside of the pig with coarse sea salt.

  3. Prepare stuffing using well-seasoned boiled potatoes.

  4. Fry the chopped liver in ½ cup of butter for 5 minutes.

Stuff and roast

  1. Stuff the pig and sew up the opening.

  2. Rub the pig with butter and dredge it with flour.

  3. Cover the pig with buttered paper.

  4. Place the pig in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  5. Baste the pig often.

  6. Bake the pig for 3.5 to 4 hours, turning to brown evenly.

Garnish and serve

  1. Garnish the pig with a string of cranberries.

  2. Place a slice of lemon in the pig's mouth.

  3. Serve the pig on a bed of parsley with apple sauce.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Pig
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole until the meat is tender and the skin browns.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture to the skin and helps it brown evenly in the oven.
Flour
Coats the skin so it crisps and browns during roasting.
Pig's liver
Fried in butter and mixed into the stuffing, adding rich, savoury flavour and moisture.
Stuffing
Fills the cavity, adding bulk and moisture while absorbing juices from the pig.

The step that matters

Baste the pig often. Basting spreads melted fat and juices over the surface, keeping the skin from drying out and helping it brown evenly over the long roast.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, liver, butter, flour, lemon, parsley, sauce):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, liver, butter, flour, lemon, parsley, sauce. 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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