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Fried Salt Pork and Apples

A fried dish of salt pork and apples, coated in cornmeal and seasoned, cooked in drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,581 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Fried Salt Pork and Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Slice the salt pork into ¼ inch thick pieces.

  2. Boil the pork in plenty of water for 30 minutes, then drain.

  3. Roll the pork in Indian meal seasoned with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat enough drippings in a large pan to cover the bottom.

  2. Cut the sour apples into eighths, removing the cores but leaving the peels.

  3. When the drippings are hot, add the pork and apples to the pan.

  4. Fry until the apples are tender but not broken, and the pork is browned.

  5. Serve on the same dish, pouring drippings over if desired.

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

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

  2. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,026 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

Salt pork
Boiling softens and mellows the pork, and frying then browns its coated surface.
Indian meal (cornmeal)
Coating forms a crisp, browned crust when fried in hot drippings.
Sour apples
Tart flavor balances the rich, salty pork, and frying softens them while keeping their shape.

The step that matters

Frying the apples until tender but not broken. Apple pieces cook quickly in hot fat and can collapse into mush if overcooked. Keeping the heat steady and checking often helps them soften while holding their shape.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper. 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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