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Pork Chops with Onions

Pork chops served atop onions cooked in butter and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pork Chops with Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Season the pork chops on both sides with salt and pepper.

  2. Brush the chops with olive oil and roll them in bread crumbs.

Make the onions

  1. Slice the onions and place them in a saucepan with butter.

  2. Cook the onions, stirring frequently, then add boiling water, salt, and pepper.

  3. Simmer the onions for 45 minutes, then strain and mix in a little mustard.

Cook and serve

  1. Grill the chops over a clear fire, turning them only once.

  2. Serve the chops on top of the onions.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pork chops
Provide the main meat, which the breadcrumb coating helps brown and protect during grilling.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating on the outside of the chops.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook slowly, forming the base the chops sit on.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the onions cook gently and taste mellow.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, tangy note that balances the sweetness of the onions.

The step that matters

Turning the chops only once. Flipping meat repeatedly slows surface browning and can dry the chops; turning once lets a crust form on the first side and keeps juices inside.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, olive, bread, onion, 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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