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Chine of Pork

A pork roast seasoned with salt, served with a mushroom, vinegar, and mustard gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Chine of Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Salt the chine of pork for 3 days.

  2. Roast the salted chine until cooked through.

Make the gravy

  1. In a pan, heat oil or butter and fry the sliced onions until they are golden.

  2. Pour off the excess oil, then add gravy sauce, chopped mushrooms, vinegar, and prepared mustard.

  3. 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.

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

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  5. 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

Pork chine
Provides the main meat, which salting firms and seasons before roasting.
Onions
Caramelise when fried golden, adding sweetness and colour to the gravy.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, fatty gravy.
Mushrooms
Add savoury depth and moisture to the gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the onions until golden. Onions cooked too quickly or too little can turn bitter or stay pale and raw-tasting. Frying gently until golden develops sweetness and colour through browning, which gives the gravy its flavour base.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. 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.

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