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Pork Pie

A savory pastry containing seasoned pork chops baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pork Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the pork

  1. Remove the rind and part of the under bone from the loin of pork and cut it into chops.

  2. Season the chops with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Make the pastry

  1. For the puff pastry, mix together ½ pound of sifted flour, 6 ounces of fresh butter, and the yolks and whites of 2 eggs.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover the seasoned chops with puff pastry and bake at 400°F (200°C).

  2. When serving, pour cullis mixed with the essence of two onions and a little mustard into the pie.

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 + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Pork + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,445 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Loin of pork
Provides the meat that forms the filling of the pie.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky crust that encloses the seasoned chops while baking.
Eggs
Add structure and richness to the pastry dough and help it bind.
Fresh butter
Adds fat that creates flaky layers and rich flavour in the pastry.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, sauce, mustard, flour, butter, egg. 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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