Name: Pork Chops and Fried Apples
Ingredients: Pork chops; Coarse sea salt; Black pepper; Powdered sage; Bread crumbs; Apples

Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pork Chops and Fried Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Season the pork chops with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and powdered sage.
Dip the seasoned chops into bread crumbs.
Fry the chops in a pan for about 20 minutes or until cooked through.
Transfer the chops to a hot dish and pour off some gravy into another pan for serving.
Slice the apples about ⅔ inch thick, removing the core.
Fry the apple slices until browned on one side, then carefully turn them to finish cooking.
Serve the fried apples around the pork chops or on a separate 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.

Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together755 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,527 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,371 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Pork + appletop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,581 recipes

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