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Fried Pork

Pork slices soaked in thick sour milk, coated in flour and egg batter, fried in hot drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,386 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Fried Pork

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the pork slices in thick sour milk overnight.

  2. Wash and dry the pork, then dust with flour and fry until brown.

Batter and fry

  1. Beat the eggs lightly and stir in the flour.

  2. Dip the pork slices in the batter and return them to the hot drippings.

  3. Fry until light brown and serve immediately, garnished with mashed potato cones.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Pork + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,187 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

Side pork
Provides the meat and fat that fry to a crisp, savory coating.
Thick sour milk
Its mild acidity softens the pork and adds a tangy flavor.
Eggs
Bind the flour into a batter that clings to the pork and sets when fried.
Flour
Dusting helps the surface dry and brown, and thickens the batter so it coats the pork.
Hot drippings
Fry the pork quickly, driving browning and adding rich flavor to the coating.

The step that matters

Return the battered pork to the hot drippings. The fat must be hot so the batter sets and browns quickly. If the fat is too cool, the coating soaks up grease and turns heavy and soggy.

“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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