Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Chops with Gravy
Ingredients
Directions
Brown the chops and vegetables
Melt butter in a frying pan.
Fry the chops for 1 minute until lightly browned on each side.
Remove the chops and fry the vegetables in the same fat for a few minutes.
Stew the chops
Dredge flour over the chops and place them in a stewpan.
Layer the fried vegetables on top of the chops.
Pour in enough warm water or stock to just cover the chops.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer gently for about 1.5 hours until tender.
Make the gravy and serve
Pour off most of the liquid and cool it in a basin surrounded by cold water.
Remove the fat from the cooled liquid, season with pepper and salt, and add ketchup and sugar browning.
Heat the gravy until very hot, then pour it over the arranged chops and serve.
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,873 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,039 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,832 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Chops
- Main protein that becomes tender during the long, gentle simmer.
- Flour
- Dredged over the chops to thicken the cooking liquid into gravy.
- Butter
- Fat for frying that adds richness and helps the chops and vegetables brown.
- Mixed vegetables
- Fried first for flavour, then layered over the chops to soften and season the stew.
- Walnut or mushroom ketchup
- Adds savoury depth and umami to the finished gravy.
The step that matters
Simmering the chops gently. A hard boil toughens meat proteins and can break up the chops, so a gentle simmer lets collagen and fibres soften slowly into tender meat.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, sugar):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Cashew nutfits about as well
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, sugar. 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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