Name: To Scald a Sucking-pig
Ingredients: 1 sucking pig; resin; sage; 1 large piece of white bread; salt; pepper; 1 onion; butter; flour

Why it works: Sage and pepper 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 ↓

To Scald a Sucking-pig

Ingredients

Directions

Put the pig in cold water for a few minutes.
Rub it with a little finely beaten resin.
Submerge it in scalding water for 1 minute.
Remove the pig and quickly pull off the hair.
If any hair remains, return it to the scalding water.
Wash the pig well with warm water, then rinse in 2 or 3 cold waters.
Remove the feet at the first joint and make a slit down the belly to remove the entrails.
Place the liver, heart, and lights with the feet.
Wash the pig in cold water, dry it thoroughly, and wrap it in a wet cloth to keep it from air exposure.

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.

Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,628 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sage, bread, pepper, butter, flour):

Shallotfits better
Capsicumfits better
Sweet potatofits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, bread, pepper, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.