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Loin of Pork

A roasted pork loin seasoned with butter, flour, salt, pepper, and sage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Loin of Pork

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Score the loin of pork well and baste it with butter.

  2. Do not add flour to avoid blistering the skin.

  3. Ensure the pork is jointed before placing it over the fire.

  4. Dust with flour when laying it down to roast.

  5. Baste with butter and sprinkle with sage and salt a quarter hour before removing from heat.

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork loin
The main cut, whose fat and surface brown and flavour during roasting.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the surface brown while basting.
Flour
Dusted on the surface, it can help the exterior brown.
Sage
Adds a herbal aroma to the outside of the meat.

The step that matters

Baste with butter and sprinkle with sage and salt a quarter hour before removing from heat. Seasoning added late stays on the surface rather than soaking in. Butter basting carries fat over the exterior, supporting browning and flavour. Adding these too early or too late changes the crust.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Sagethe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, flour, pepper. 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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