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Pork Cutlets

Pork cutlets served in a brown gravy sauce with vinegar and tomato.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,843 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pork Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the pork loin into cutlets, boneless and trim them neatly.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the cutlets until light brown.

  2. In a small saucepan, combine vinegar, chopped shallot, tomato sauce, and enough brown gravy to taste.

  3. Stew the cutlets in the sauce for five minutes.

  4. Serve the cutlets arranged nicely on a plate.

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 + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,843 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + shallottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Shallot + tomatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together583 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Shallot + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork loin
Forms the main meat of the dish, cooked tender in the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens and balances the rich gravy.
Shallot
Adds mild aromatic sweetness to the sauce.
Tomato sauce
Adds acidity, sweetness and body to the sauce.
Brown gravy
Provides savoury depth and moisture for the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets until light brown. Browning the surface through frying creates flavour through the Maillard reaction. Cutlets that are pale or greyish taste flat, and overcooking dries lean pork before the stew step.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, vinegar, tomato, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, vinegar, tomato, 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.

More pork cutlets recipes

Breaded 11Broiled 7Grilled 5Minced 3with Gherkins 3with Gravy 3 See all 37 →

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