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Pork Chops, Broiled or Fried

Pork chops grilled over a clear fire, seasoned with salt, pepper, and optional sage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Pepper and sage 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, Broiled or Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the chops neatly and cut away excess fat.

  2. Grease the grill and heat it up.

Cook

  1. Place the chops on the grill over a clear fire.

  2. Turn the chops every two minutes until cooked through, about 25 minutes.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and sage if desired.

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 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

Pork chops
Provide the main protein; their fat and thickness shape how the meat cooks and stays moist.

The step that matters

Turning the chops every two minutes. Frequent turning over a clear fire cooks the chops evenly and keeps the outside from scorching before the center is done. Pork should be cooked through, so check doneness rather than relying only on the timer.

Swap the sage

The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper):

  1. Sagethe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, 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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