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Pigs in Blanket

Pigs in Blanket are pork slices rolled with a breadcrumb and apple mixture, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Pigs in Blanket

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Make a dressing by mixing bread crumbs, chopped apples, salt, pepper, and enough milk to bind the crumbs.

Roll the pork

  1. Lay the pork slices flat and place a heap of dressing on each slice.

  2. Roll the pork tightly and secure the edges with toothpicks.

Bake

  1. Place the rolls in a casserole or baking dish and bake uncovered until done.

  2. If desired, add whole apples around the rolls halfway through baking, after removing the cores and filling the cavities with sugar.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

  3. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

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

  4. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  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

Lean boneless pork slices
Wrap around the dressing and cook to become the tender outer layer of each roll.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and milk to form a soft, cohesive stuffing that holds its shape.
Chopped apples
Add moisture and sweetness to the dressing, balancing the savory pork.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs so they bind together inside the rolls.

The step that matters

Roll the pork tightly. Loose rolls let the dressing spill out and leave gaps, so the filling can dry or fall apart during baking. Tight rolling keeps the stuffing moist and the rolls holding together.

Swap the apple

The recipe marks apple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, bread, pepper, milk):

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Mangofits about as well
  3. Applethe original
  4. Cherryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, bread, pepper, milk. 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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