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To Fry Pork Chops

A simple fried pork chop recipe with sage and onion breadcrumbs, served with apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and apple work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 755 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

To Fry Pork Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the chops in beaten egg, then sprinkle with bread crumbs, sage, and onion.

  2. Fry the chops in a skillet until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with apple sauce; no gravy is needed.

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. Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  3. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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 that is cooked until tender and browned.
Egg
Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres to the chops during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot skillet.
Sage
Adds aromatic, herbal flavor to the coating.
Onion
Adds savory flavor to the coating.

The step that matters

Fry the chops until golden brown. Frying over sufficient heat browns the bread crumb coating through the Maillard reaction, which builds flavor and color. Too little heat leaves the coating pale and greasy, while the chop needs enough time to cook through.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Pumpkinfits about as well
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, egg, bread, sage, onion, sauce. 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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