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Roast Piq

A whole pig stuffed with a liver and breadcrumb mixture, roasted over a clear fire and served with apple or mango.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 Piq

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Thoroughly wash the pig inside and out.

  2. Chop the liver finely and mix with bread crumbs, onion, parsley, pepper, salt, and mashed potatoes.

  3. Combine the mixture with butter and egg to form a paste.

  4. Stuff the pig with the paste and sew it up.

Roast

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

  2. Roast the pig over a clear fire, basting frequently with butter.

  3. Rub the pig with lard tied in a clean rag.

  4. Lay the pig on its knees in a dish.

  5. Place a red apple or pickled mango in the pig's mouth.

Serve

  1. Serve some stuffing with the roast pig and the rest in a gravy boat with a glass of wine.

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

Fat pig
Provides the main meat, and its fat bastes and flavours the roast as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the stuffing so it holds together rather than turning loose.
Egg
Binds the stuffing ingredients together into a cohesive paste.
Potatoes
Add starch and moisture to the stuffing, keeping it soft and tender when cooked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns the skin as it is basted over the fire.

The step that matters

Roast the pig over a clear fire, basting frequently with butter. A clear fire gives steady, even heat without soot or flare-ups. Frequent basting keeps the skin moist and promotes even browning, so the outside does not dry or burn before the interior is cooked through.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, onion, 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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