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Stuffed Chops

A dish of French chops covered with a breadcrumb and ham stuffing, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Chops

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the stuffing

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

  2. In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, ham, parsley, onion, and green pepper.

  3. Moisten the mixture with tomato juice and season with salt, pepper, and butter.

Stuff and bake

  1. Cover French chops with a layer of stuffing, about ½ inch thick.

  2. Bake in the oven until the chops are brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with tomato sauce and garnish with parsley and frills of white paper on the chop bones.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

Fine bread crumbs
Absorb the tomato juice and butter to form a moist, cohesive stuffing layer.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the stuffing brown in the oven.
Tomato juice
Moistens the bread crumbs so the stuffing does not dry out while baking.
Ham
Contributes savory, salty flavor to the stuffing.
Green pepper
Adds fresh, slightly bitter aroma and texture to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Bake until the chops are brown. Browning depends on surface dryness and oven heat. Stuffing that is too wet from the tomato juice can steam instead of browning, so the chops may need longer in a hot oven to brown properly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, ham, parsley, pepper, tomato, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, ham, parsley, pepper, tomato, butter. 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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