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Fried Salt Pork

Fried salt pork is a dish of salted pork slices coated in flour and fried, served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,386 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Fried Salt Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Soak the salt pork in cold water or a mixture of milk and water for 1–2 hours.

  2. Roll the soaked pork in flour.

  3. Fry the floured pork until crisp.

  4. If short on time, pour boiling water over the pork slices and let the pork stand for a few minutes.

  5. Drain the pork.

Fry and make the gravy

  1. Roll the drained pork in flour.

  2. Fry the floured pork as before.

  3. Drain excess grease from the frying pan.

  4. Stir in 2 tablespoons of flour while the pan is hot.

  5. Add ½ cup of new milk and a little pepper, and salt if needed.

  6. Let the mixture boil.

  7. Pour the boiling mixture into a gravy dish.

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

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

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Salt pork
Provides the main meat and fat that is fried until crisp.
Flour
Coats the pork so it browns and crisps, and thickens the gravy.
New milk
Liquid that, with the pan drippings and flour, forms the gravy.

The step that matters

Let the mixture boil. Flour stirred into hot fat must be cooked with the liquid at a boil so the starch thickens fully and the raw flour taste cooks off.

“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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