Why it works: Pork and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,933 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
To Roast Pork
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Season the pork with salt.
Roast and serve
Roast the pork until well done, ensuring it takes sufficient time.
Optionally, cover lean parts with thin slices of bacon while roasting.
When carving, squeeze a lemon over the ribs and add melted butter if desired.
Press the separated parts together to obtain gravy.
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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Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,933 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Pork + lemontop 26% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,786 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pork
- Forms the main body of the dish, and its fat and connective tissue render during roasting.
- Bacon
- Adds fat that bastes lean parts of the pork as it roasts.
- Melted butter
- Adds richness and fat that carries flavor to the carved meat.
The step that matters
Roast the pork until well done. Pork needs to reach a safe internal temperature throughout, and the record gives no time, so the cook must judge doneness with a thermometer rather than by color alone.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, butter):
- Applefits better
- Coconutfits better
- Avocadofits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter. 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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