Skip to main content
Main

Curried Chops, with Rice

A dish of pork chops simmered in a curry‑spiced sauce served over boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Curried Chops, with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash the rice several times in cold water.

  2. Add the rice to boiling water with salt and boil for 20 minutes.

  3. Drain the rice in a colander.

Make the Spanish sauce

  1. To make the Spanish sauce, fry bacon in lard until brown.

  2. Add carrot and onion, then stir in flour and brown well.

  3. Add stock or water with chopped meat, season with salt, pepper, and sweet herbs.

  4. Simmer for an hour, skimming off any scum.

  5. Strain the sauce and add wine.

Cook and serve the pork chops

  1. Fry the pork chops in butter until browned.

  2. Drain excess grease from the pork chops.

  3. Mix the Spanish sauce with curry powder and cold water until smooth.

  4. Arrange the pork chops on a hot platter and pour the sauce over them.

  5. Fill the center of the platter with the hot rice.

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. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  2. Rice + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,477 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  5. Rice + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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 browns in butter for flavor and color.
Flour
Thickens the sauce and helps it brown during frying.
Bacon or ham
Adds savory, smoky depth to the base of the Spanish sauce.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness as it softens and browns in the base.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the simmered sauce.
Wine
Adds acidity and depth to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour and browning it well. Flour must cook long enough in the fat to lose its raw starch taste and develop color. Under-browned flour leaves the sauce pale and floury, while over-browned flour turns bitter.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, pork, butter, sauce, ham, onion, flour):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, pork, butter, sauce, ham, onion, flour. 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipes