Name: Pork Chops Served with Fried Bananas
Ingredients: Pork chops; Coarse sea salt; Black pepper; Flour; Cooking fat (for frying); Bananas

Why it works: Pepper and banana work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 483 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Pork Chops Served with Fried Bananas

Ingredients

Directions

Select pork chops from the loin.
Season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and flour.
Fry the chops in hot fat until cooked through.
Peel the bananas and cut them in half lengthwise.
Fry the banana halves in the hot fat until golden brown.

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.

Pepper + bananatop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together483 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Flour + bananatop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,725 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pork + bananatop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together154 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).