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Buckwheat Cakes and Roast Fresh Pork, with Sugar Syrup

Buckwheat pancakes served with roast pork and sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Buckwheat and flour work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 660 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Buckwheat Cakes and Roast Fresh Pork, with Sugar Syrup

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.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix buckwheat flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. In another bowl, whisk together milk and eggs.

  3. Combine wet and dry ingredients, then stir in melted butter.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a griddle or skillet over medium heat and pour batter to form cakes.

  2. Cook until bubbles form, then flip and cook until golden brown.

  3. For the pork, roast in the oven at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

  4. Serve the buckwheat cakes with sugar syrup and the roast pork.

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. Buckwheat + flourtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Buckwheat + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

Flour and butter 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

Buckwheat flour
Forms the body of the batter and gives the cakes their earthy, nutty flavour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the cakes as they cook.
Whole milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter a smooth, pourable consistency.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking so the cakes rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, tenderising the cakes and aiding browning on the griddle.

The step that matters

Cook until bubbles form, then flip. Bubbles appearing on the surface signal that the underside has set enough to hold. Flipping earlier tears the cake, while waiting too long can leave the centre dry.

Swap the buckwheat

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, egg, butter, pork, sugar, syrup):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Buckwheatthe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, butter, pork, sugar, syrup. 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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