Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Chops with Gravy
Ingredients
Directions
Brown the chops
Melt a little butter in a frying pan.
Fry the chops for 1 minute until lightly browned on each side.
Remove the chops and fry the vegetables in the same fat for a few minutes.
Stew
Dredge flour over the chops and place them in a stewpan.
Lay the fried vegetables on top and pour in enough warm water or stock to cover.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer gently for about 1.5 hours until tender.
Make the gravy and serve
Pour off most of the liquid and cool it in a basin surrounded by cold water.
Remove the fat, season the gravy with pepper and salt, and add walnut or mushroom ketchup and sugar browning.
Heat the gravy until very hot, arrange the chops on a dish, pour the gravy over them, and serve.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,873 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,039 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,832 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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
- Chops
- Browning and then slow stewing make the meat tender and flavourful.
- Flour
- Dusted over the chops, it helps thicken the liquid into a gravy.
- Vegetables
- Fried first, they add savoury flavour and body to the stewing liquid.
- Walnut or mushroom ketchup
- Adds concentrated savoury, umami depth to the finished gravy.
- Sugar browning
- Darkens the gravy's colour and adds a hint of caramel sweetness.
The step that matters
Simmering gently for about 1.5 hours. A rolling boil toughens meat proteins and can break up the gravy, so a gentle simmer lets collagen slowly soften into tender meat.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, sugar):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Cashew nutfits about as well
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, sugar. 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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