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Pork Cutlets or Chops

Pork cutlets or chops simmered with onion, thickened gravy, served with tomato or apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pork Cutlets or Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Trim the chops and remove most of the fat.

  2. Place bones, trimmings, and onion in a stewpan with just enough water to cover them and boil gently for at least 1 hour.

  3. Strain the gravy.

  4. Skim off the fat.

  5. Rub the onion through a fine sieve.

  6. Return the onion to the stewpan with the gelatine to thicken the gravy.

Cook the cutlets

  1. Heat the butter in a frying pan.

  2. Fry the chops slowly until thoroughly cooked, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Use glaze for better flavor.

  2. Season the sauce to taste.

  3. Add a few drops of liquid caramel for color.

  4. Arrange the cutlets in a circle on a potato border.

  5. Pour the sauce over them.

  6. Serve with tomato or 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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pork chops
Provide the meat, which cooks through slowly to stay tender and juicy.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and body to the gravy once rubbed through the sieve.
Gelatine
Sets the gravy into a thicker, glossier sauce that clings to the cutlets.
Butter
Fat for frying the chops, adding richness and browning the surface.

The step that matters

Fry the chops slowly until thoroughly cooked. Slow frying over moderate heat cooks the centre through without scorching the outside, and the chops must reach full doneness for safety while staying tender.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, pepper. 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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