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Roast Pig

A whole pig stuffed with liver, bread crumbs, onion, parsley, potatoes, butter, and egg, then roasted and basted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Roast Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the pig thoroughly inside and out.

  2. Mix the chopped liver with bread crumbs, onion, parsley, pepper, salt, mashed potatoes, butter, and egg to make a paste.

  3. Stuff the mixture into the body of the pig and sew it up.

  4. Place the pig in a baking pan with some water at the bottom.

Roast

  1. Roast over a clear fire, basting well with butter.

  2. Rub the pig frequently with a piece of lard tied in a clean rag.

  3. When done, lay the pig on its knees in a dish and place a red apple or pickled mango in its mouth.

Serve

  1. Serve some stuffing in a bowl with a glass of wine and some drippings, alongside the roast pig.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig
Forms the whole roast, and its body cavity holds the stuffing while it cooks.
Liver
Adds rich flavour and a dense, savoury texture to the stuffing paste.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the stuffing into a paste.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when cooked.
Potatoes
Add starch and moisture, keeping the stuffing soft and cohesive.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and browning during basting.

The step that matters

Roasting and basting over a clear fire. Steady, even heat with frequent basting keeps the skin browning without scorching. Regular fat coating helps it brown evenly and stay moist through the long roast.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, bread, parsley, pepper, potato, butter, egg):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, bread, parsley, pepper, potato, butter, egg. 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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