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Smothered Pork Chops

Smothered pork chops baked with potatoes, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Smothered Pork Chops

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Roll the pork chops in flour.

  2. Fry the pork chops in a skillet until browned.

Bake

  1. Place the browned pork chops in a roaster.

  2. Cover the pork chops with sliced raw potatoes.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper to taste.

  4. Bake for 1.5 hours in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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 + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 meat, which browns in the skillet and becomes tender during slow baking.
Flour
Coats the chops so they brown well and help thicken the pan juices.
Raw potatoes
Release starch and moisture as they bake, adding body to the juices around the chops.

The step that matters

Fry the pork chops in a skillet until browned. Browning the flour-coated chops builds flavour through the Maillard reaction, and the browned surface helps the flour thicken the juices later.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, flour, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Turnipfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, flour, pepper. 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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