Name: Baked Pork with Apples
Ingredients: pork roast; coarse sea salt; black pepper; apples; dough for cap

Why it works: Pork and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,581 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Baked Pork with Apples

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.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Place the pork roast in a pan and season it well with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
When the roast is about halfway done, pour off the fat.
Prepare the apples by peeling the top two inches and placing a band of dough around the peeled part.
Surround the roast with the prepared apples and bake for 2 to 3 hours.

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.

Pork + appletop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,581 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + appletop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,026 recipes

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