Name: Cutlets From Colo Roast Pork
Ingredients: 1 ounce butter; cutlets from roast pork; 1 onion, chopped finely; 2 teaspoons flour; ½ pint gravy; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; 1 teaspoon vinegar; 1 teaspoon made mustard

Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cutlets From Colo Roast Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Add the cutlets and chopped onion, and fry until light brown.
Stir in the flour, gravy, pepper, and salt.
Add the vinegar and mustard, and simmer gently for a few minutes.
Serve hot.

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.

Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,214 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 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

Butter: Adds richness and helps the onion and pork brown in the pan.
Flour: Thickens the gravy so it coats the cutlets rather than running off.
Onion: Softens and sweetens as it fries, adding savoury depth to the gravy.
Made mustard: Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the richness of the pork and gravy.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the gravy and cuts through the fattiness of the pork.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets and onion until light brown. Browning builds the Maillard flavours that the gravy will carry. Pale, steamed cutlets produce a flat sauce, so the pan needs enough heat and room for the meat to colour.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pork, flour, pepper, vinegar, mustard):

Shallotfits better
Lettucefits better
Capsicumfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pork, flour, pepper, vinegar, mustard. 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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Cutlets From Colo Roast Pork