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Roast Pig

A whole pig roasted with salt, pepper, sage, and a bread stuffing, served with a gravy of heart and liver.

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. Rinse the pig in cold water and wipe it dry.

  2. Rub the inside with salt, pepper, and sage if desired.

  3. Spread butter on one side of the bread slices, sprinkle with salt, pepper, sage, and minced onion if using.

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

Roast

  1. Place the pig on a spit, pour a pint of water into the dripping pan, and add salt and pepper.

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

  3. Turn the pig occasionally for even cooking; it is done when the eyes drop out or after 15 minutes per pound.

  4. When done, rub the pig with a cloth soaked in butter until the skin is crisp.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Dredge flour into the gravy, boil, and add chopped heart and liver, then serve.

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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig
Forms the main meat; slow roasting cooks it through while the skin crisps.
Wheat bread
Makes the stuffing that absorbs juices and keeps the cavity moist.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the skin brown and crisp when rubbed on at the end.
Flour
Thickens the drippings into a gravy by swelling in the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Positioning the pig and turning it. Placing the pig too close to the fire early can scorch the outside before the thick meat cooks through. Gradual movement closer, with regular turning and basting, gives even heat and a well-cooked interior.

Swap the sage

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

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

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