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Bread Stuffing for Roast Pig

Bread stuffing made with liver, sage, onions, stale bread, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Bread Stuffing for Roast Pig

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the liver and pour boiling water over it; let stand 10–15 minutes, then drain.

  2. Scald a dozen sage leaves in boiling water, then drain.

  3. Parboil three small onions until nearly tender, then drain.

Chop and mix

  1. Chop the liver, sage, and onions very fine.

  2. Add 1 pint of stale bread, 1 teaspoon of salt, ½ teaspoon of pepper, and ½ cup of melted butter. Mix well.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Liver + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1,8-cineol (eucalyptus, camphor).

  5. Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Liver
Adds rich, savory flavor and a dense, meaty body to the stuffing.
Stale bread
Absorbs liquid and fat while holding its shape, giving the stuffing its structure.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and moisture, and helps the bread stay tender.
Small onions
Contribute savory aroma and moisture as they soften into the mixture.
Sage leaves
Provide the herbal, aromatic flavour characteristic of classic stuffing.

The step that matters

Parboil the onions until nearly tender. Onions cooked fully before mixing turn mushy and release excess water, which makes the stuffing soggy. Stopping early lets them finish softening gently in the bread and butter while keeping a little texture.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, sage, bread, pepper, butter. 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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