Name: Pork Steaks
Ingredients: pork steaks; cayenne pepper; coarse sea salt; rubbed sage; butter; lard; flour

Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pork Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the pork steaks into thin slices.
Season the slices with cayenne pepper, coarse sea salt, and rubbed sage.

Cook

Broil the steaks and butter them.
Alternatively, fry the steaks in hot lard.
Thicken a little flour with the drippings to make a gravy.
Pour the gravy over the steaks.

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,527 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,115 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,933 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

Pork steaks: Forms the main body of the dish, cooked by broiling or frying.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the steaks brown and taste rich when broiled.
Lard: Fat for frying the steaks, adding flavor and helping the surface brown.
Flour: Thickens the pan drippings into a gravy.