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Barbecued Pork

Barbecued pork loin baked with flour, pepper, salt, butter, walnut catsup, served with fried apples.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Barbecued Pork

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place the loin of pork in the oven without water.

  3. Sprinkle the pork with flour, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  4. Baste the pork with butter.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook for 2 to 3 hours, or until very brown.

  2. Pour in ½ cup of walnut catsup before serving.

  3. Serve with fried apples.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

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

  4. Pork + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

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

  5. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Pork loin
Forms the main meat that becomes tender and browned during slow roasting.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the surface brown and gives a rich flavor.
Walnut catsup
Adds a tangy, savory sweetness that flavors the pork as it is finished.
Flour
Dusts the surface, helping the pork brown and form a slightly crisp crust.

The step that matters

Cook for 2 to 3 hours, or until very brown. Pork cooked too briefly stays tough and underdone in the center, while overcooking dries it out. Judging doneness by color and time together helps the meat stay juicy.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, flour, pepper, butter, walnut. 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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