Skip to main content

Apple Cider Sauce and Pork Loin Chops

"Seasoned pork loin chops baked with apple cider and Worcestershire sauce and finished with sherry make even the pickiest husband say, 'Wow!' Serve with mashed potatoes."

Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pork and cider work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and 271 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

The recipe

4 servings
Prep10 min
Cook45 min

Ingredients

Contains: soy, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Pat the pork loin chops dry. Season both sides with seasoning salt, black pepper and garlic powder to taste, then sprinkle evenly with the poultry seasoning.

  2. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chops and sear about 4 minutes per side until well browned. Transfer the chops to a plate.

  3. Reduce the heat to medium. Pour the dry sherry into the skillet and scrape up the browned bits with a wooden spoon. Simmer 2 minutes.

  4. Stir in the frozen apple cider concentrate, undiluted, and the Worcestershire sauce. Break up the concentrate as it melts and bring the sauce to a gentle simmer, about 5 minutes.

  5. Return the chops to the skillet and spoon the sauce over them. Cover and simmer over low heat about 20 minutes, turning the chops once, until the sauce thickens slightly.

  6. Check that the thickest part of each chop reads at least 145°F (63°C) on a meat thermometer; cook a few minutes longer if needed. Rest the chops 3 minutes.

  7. Spoon the sauce over the chops and serve.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pork + cidertop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together271 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Apple + cidertop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,042 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Cider + sherrytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  4. Olive + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together23,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Apple + sherrytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, pork, pepper, sauce, apple, cider, sherry):

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Clovebetter flavor fit
  3. Gingerbetter flavor fit
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, pork, pepper, sauce, apple, cider, sherry. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).