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To Fry Pork Chops

A dish of thin pork chops coated with egg yolk, sage, onion, and breadcrumbs, fried until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,214 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Fry Pork Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

  1. Cut the pork chops rather thin.

  2. Dip the chops in the yolk of the egg.

  3. Mix sage, onion, and bread crumbs, then sprinkle over the chops.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the chops in lard or cooking oil until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Serve hot.

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

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

  2. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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 protein, which turns firm and opaque as it cooks through.
Egg yolk
Acts as a binder so the crumb coating sticks to the chops and browns when fried.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating on the outside of the chops when fried.
Sage
Adds a savoury, herbal aroma that flavours the pork and coating.
Onion
Adds savoury flavour and some moisture to the crumb coating as it cooks.

The step that matters

Fry until thoroughly cooked. Pork must reach a safe internal temperature throughout. Cutting the chops thin helps heat reach the centre, while the coating can brown before the meat is done, so the chops should be checked for doneness rather than judged by colour alone.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, egg, onion, bread):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, egg, onion, bread. 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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