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Pork, Baked

A pork roast baked with onions, carrots, turnip, celery, button onions, herbs, butter, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pork, Baked

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

  1. Score the pork in narrow lines.

  2. Slice all the vegetables except the button onions.

Roast

  1. Place the sliced vegetables in a baking dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and add the herbs and dripping.

  2. Lay the pork on top of the vegetables and cook in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C), basting frequently.

Fry the onions and serve

  1. Half an hour before serving, peel the small onions and fry them in hot butter until brown.

  2. Serve the pork on a hot dish, garnish with the fried onions, and serve the gravy in a sauceboat.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pork
Forms the main joint, which becomes tender and browned as it roasts slowly over the vegetables.
Dripping
Fat that carries heat around the pork and helps the surface brown during roasting.
Onions
Sweeten and soften as they cook, adding flavour to the roasting juices and gravy.
Carrots
Release sweetness and moisture as they roast beneath the pork, flavouring the pan juices.
Butter
Fat used to fry the button onions, giving them a rich flavour and deep brown colour.

The step that matters

Basting frequently during the roast. Spooning the hot fat and juices over the pork keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly, while the meat cooks through gently.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, onion, carrot, turnip, celery, butter, sauce):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, onion, carrot, turnip, celery, butter, 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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