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Pork, Leg Of, Roasted

Roasted pork leg with sage and onion stuffing, baked and basted, served with gravy and apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and apple work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 755 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Pork, Leg Of, Roasted

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. Remove the bones down to the knuckle bone and break them into smaller pieces.

  2. Simmer the bones for gravy.

  3. Prepare the sage and onion stuffing and press it lightly inside the leg.

  4. Secure the opening.

  5. Score the skin in narrow strips and brush with salad oil.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast before a clear fire or bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Allow 25 minutes of cooking time for each pound of meat.

  3. Serve the gravy and apple sauce in sauceboats.

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. Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  3. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pork + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork leg
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the meat that cooks through during roasting.
Salad oil
Brushed on the scored skin to help it brown and crisp in the oven.
Sage and onion stuffing
Fills the cavity, adding moisture and flavour to the meat as it roasts.
Gravy
Made from simmered bones, it adds moisture and savoury richness to the sliced meat.

The step that matters

Score the skin in narrow strips and brush with salad oil. Shallow, even scoring lets fat render and the surface dry, which helps the skin crisp rather than stay soft. Oil on the skin promotes even browning in the oven.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, sage, onion, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sage, onion, 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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