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Curried Pork

A pork dish simmered in a sauce of apple, onions, curry powder, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Curried Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Cut the pork into small slices.

  2. Fry the sliced pork in butter until browned.

  3. Remove the pork from the butter and drain.

Make the sauce

  1. Mince the apple and onions.

  2. Fry the minced apple and onions in the same butter until soft.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Mix the sieved mixture with ground rice, curry powder, stock, water, and a little salt.

  5. Stir the sauce over heat until it boils.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the pork slices to the boiling sauce.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let simmer until done.

  3. Serve the pork on a hot dish, pouring the sauce over it, with boiled rice on the side.

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 + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pork + ricetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Apple + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Pork + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork
Browning in butter gives flavour, and simmering in the sauce makes it tender.
Onions
Softened and sieved, they thicken the sauce and add sweetness and body.
Apple
Softened and sieved into the sauce, it adds sweetness and a mellow body.
Ground rice
Starch that thickens the sauce as it heats and gives it a smooth texture.
Curry powder
Provides the spiced aroma and flavour that defines the dish.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce over heat until it boils. Ground rice is a starch that must be heated to boiling to thicken the sauce fully; stopping early leaves it thin and gritty-tasting.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, butter, onion, rice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, onion, rice. 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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