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Chops, with Apples and Raisins

Pork loin chops seasoned and fried, served with raisins stewed in gravy, apple sauce, and spinach.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chops, with Apples and Raisins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

  1. Trim excess fat from the chops and sprinkle them with black pepper, ground ginger, cayenne, and curry powder.

Fry the chops

  1. Flour the chops lightly before frying.

  2. Rub a frying pan with garlic, melt pork dripping in it, and fry the chops until browned.

  3. Ensure the chops are cooked through.

Make the raisins and serve

  1. Stew the sultana raisins in a little gravy until covered, then mix in a pinch of curry powder.

  2. Serve the chops on a bed of spinach with apple sauce 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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Ginger + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Clove + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Loin chops
Provides the main meat, and frying browns its surface for flavour.
Pork dripping
Fat for frying that conducts heat evenly and adds richness and browning.
Sultana raisins
Stewing softens them and releases their sweetness into the gravy.
Apple sauce
Adds sweetness and moisture alongside the savoury chops.
Garlic
Rubbed into the pan to add aroma to the frying fat.
Curry powder
Adds warm spice aroma to the chops and the raisins.

The step that matters

Ensure the chops are cooked through. Pork must reach a fully cooked centre, and browning on the outside does not confirm this. Thick chops can look done while still undercooked inside, so check the centre before serving.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, ginger, clove, garlic, pork, apple, sauce):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, ginger, clove, garlic, pork, apple, 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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