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Pork Toast

A dish of fried salt pork served with a gravy poured over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Pork Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the salt pork slices until cooked, then remove to a serving dish.

Make the gravy

  1. In the same pan, combine hot water and sweet milk, and bring to a boil.

  2. Stir in the flour mixed with a little cold milk or water until smooth.

Assemble and serve

  1. Dip the toasted bread slices into the gravy.

  2. Layer the toast in a deep dish and pour the gravy over it.

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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  3. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + breadtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour 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 fat and savory flavor that seasons the gravy and toast.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth gravy as it heats.
Sweet milk
Adds richness and body to the gravy.
Toasted bread
Soaks up the gravy, giving the dish its base and softer texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the liquid. Flour added to hot liquid can clump if not first mixed smooth with cold liquid. Blending it with a little cold milk or water before stirring in helps it disperse evenly, so the gravy thickens without lumps.

“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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