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Pork Chops, with Tomato Gravy

Pork chops cooked with a tomato-based gravy made from butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper 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, with Tomato Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

  1. Trim off skin and fat from the pork chops.

  2. Rub the chops with a mixture of powdered sage and onion.

Cook

  1. Melt a small piece of butter in a frying pan and add the chops.

  2. Cook the chops slowly until well done.

  3. Place the chops on a hot dish.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Add a little hot water to the pan gravy.

  2. Mix in a tablespoon of butter rolled in flour, pepper, salt, sugar, and the tomato juice.

  3. Stew for five minutes and pour over the chops.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Pork + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,843 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

Pork chops
Provide the main meat, which cooks through slowly to become tender and well done.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for frying the chops and enriching the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when rolled into the butter and stewed in the liquid.
Tomato juice
Adds acidity and tomato flavour to the gravy, which stews briefly.
Onion
Contributes savoury aroma and flavour when rubbed onto the chops.

The step that matters

Cook the chops slowly until well done. Slow cooking over moderate heat lets the thick chop cook through without drying out the outside. Pork needs to reach a safe internal temperature, so checking doneness matters. Cooking too fast can leave the outside dry and the centre undercooked.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sage, onion, butter, flour, pepper, sugar. 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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