Name: Chine of Pork
Ingredients: 1 chine of pork; 2 or 3 onions, sliced; oil or butter for frying; gravy sauce; chopped mushrooms; 2 tablespoons vinegar; 1 teaspoon prepared mustard

Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chine of Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

Salt the chine of pork for 3 days.

Roast and fry

Roast the chine until cooked through.
Fry the sliced onions in oil or butter until golden.

Make the sauce and serve

Pour off the oil, then add gravy sauce, chopped mushrooms, vinegar, and mustard.
Bring the mixture to a boil and serve it with the roasted chine.

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.

Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pork + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).
Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chine of pork: Forms the main meat that is salted, then roasted until cooked through.
Onions: Soften and turn golden in fat, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the sauce.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the sauce and balances the richness of the pork and gravy.
Mushrooms: Add moisture and earthy flavour to the sauce as it comes to a boil.

Swap the onion

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

Shallotfits better
Capsicumfits about as well
Horseradishfits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, sauce, mushroom, vinegar, mustard. 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.