Name: Broiled Pork Chops with Milk Gravy
Ingredients: Pork chops; ½ cup milk; Pepper; Coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); Browned flour and butter or plain thickening

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 ↓

Broiled Pork Chops with Milk Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chops

Fry the pork chops first.
Lay them on a grill while you pour the milk into the pan.

Make the sauce

Season the milk with pepper and salt.
Thicken the milk with browned flour and butter or plain thickening.
Strain the sauce into a dish and place the chop in it.

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.

Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,386 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together26,984 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

Pork chops: The main protein, which browns in the pan and is served in the sauce.
Milk: Forms the base of the sauce that is thickened into a gravy.
Browned flour and butter or plain thickening: Thickens the milk so it coats the chop rather than running off.

“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.