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Pork Steak with Seasoned Tomato Sauce

Pork steaks coated in egg and cracker crumbs, fried, served with a seasoned tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pork Steak with Seasoned Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Roll the pork steaks in egg and cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry the steaks in hot fat until golden brown.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pan, fry the chopped onion in butter until brown.

  2. Add the tomatoes to the onion and stew for a few minutes.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Heat the sauce and add sugar, salt, pepper, and baking soda.

  5. Thicken the sauce with corn starch.

Serve

  1. Arrange the cooked pork steaks on a platter and pour the sauce around them.

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. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Pork + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,069 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 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 steaks
The main protein, which the egg and crumb coating helps brown and hold together in the pan.
Egg
Binds the cracker crumbs to the pork so the coating sticks during frying.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.
Tomatoes
Provide the base of the sauce, adding acidity and body as they stew.
Butter
Adds fat and richness when frying the onion, helping it brown.
Corn starch
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it a smooth, glossy body.

The step that matters

Frying the pork in hot fat. The fat must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy and pale before the pork cooks through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, egg, butter, tomato, sugar, pepper, corn):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, egg, butter, tomato, sugar, pepper, corn. 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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