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Pork Chops

Pork chops cooked in a pan and served with a sage and onion sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pork Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the pork chops

  1. Heat a frying pan over medium heat and add just enough fat to grease the pan.

  2. Once hot, add the pork chops and turn them frequently until they are browned, about 15 to 20 minutes.

  3. When the chops are halfway done, season with sage, pepper, and salt.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, melt a little butter in a separate pan, add flour, and stir in the minced onion.

  2. Cook until the onion is soft, then serve the sauce with the pork chops.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pork chops
Main protein that browns in the pan to form the dish's savoury base.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and onion mixture into a sauce.
Onion
Softens and adds sweetness and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Turning the pork chops frequently while browning. Frequent turning promotes even browning and helps prevent the outside from scorching before the centre cooks through. Gentle, steady heat is what lets the surface brown without burning.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sage, pepper, butter, 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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