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To Fry Pork Chops

Breaded pork chops fried until golden, served with optional apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

  1. Cut pork chops rather thin and dress them thoroughly.

  2. Dip the chops in beaten egg.

  3. Sprinkle with bread crumbs, sage, and onion.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the chops until golden brown.

  2. Serve with apple sauce, if desired.

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
Thinness lets the chops cook through quickly while the coating browns.
Egg
Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres to the chop during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden-brown crust when fried.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor to the coating.
Sage
Adds herbal aroma to the coating.

The step that matters

Fry the chops until golden brown. Frying over steady heat browns the crumb coating through Maillard browning while the thin chop cooks through. Too little heat leaves the coating greasy and pale, and too much burns it before the meat is done.

Swap the sage

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

  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, bread, onion. 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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