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Minced Pork

A pork mince cooked with apples, onions, butter, gravy, mustard, and flour, served with toasted sippets around the dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Minced Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Remove all meat from the pork leg, then mince finely and discard fat and skin.

Cook

  1. Melt butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add minced pork, chopped apples, and onions, and cook over gentle heat for 1–2 minutes.

  3. Add gravy or substitute with calf's head liquor and vinegar.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, mustard, and flour, and stir.

  5. Let simmer gently until heated through, without boiling.

Serve

  1. Serve with toasted sippets around the dish.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Pork + meattop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Pork + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,445 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pork leg meat
Forms the main body of the dish and supplies its savoury, meaty flavour.
Apples
Add sweetness and a fruity acidity that balances the rich pork.
Onions
Contribute savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften in the butter.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth, helping the mixture stay juicy as it heats.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid, giving the mixture a body that clings to the meat.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and a pungent aroma that cuts through the richness of the pork.

The step that matters

Let simmer gently without boiling. Boiling toughens minced meat and can make the flour-thickened liquid separate or turn grainy. A gentle simmer heats the meat through while keeping it tender and the sauce smooth.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, meat, onion, butter, vinegar, mustard, flour):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, meat, onion, butter, vinegar, mustard, flour. 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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