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Fried Salt Pork

Fried salt pork is thinly sliced pork fried in a pan and served with a thick sweet cream gravy and baked potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Fried Salt Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Cut the pork into thin slices and remove the skin.

  2. Soak the pork in cold water for 30 minutes.

  3. Heat the water until scalding hot, but do not boil.

  4. Remove the pork, drain it, and dip it in flour.

Fry and make the gravy

  1. Fry the pork in a hot frying pan until golden brown on both sides.

  2. Transfer the cooked pork to a hot platter and drain the drippings from the pan.

  3. Add 1 cup of thick sweet cream to the pan and bring to a boil.

  4. If the gravy is not thick enough, mix 1 tablespoon of flour with a little cold milk and add it to the gravy.

  5. Season the gravy with pepper and coarse sea salt, then serve in a gravy boat.

Serve

  1. Serve with baked potatoes.

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. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. 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

Very fat side pork
Its fat renders in the hot pan, frying the slices and providing the drippings for the gravy.
Flour
Coats the pork so it browns, and thickens the cream gravy.
Thick sweet cream
Forms the body of the gravy, adding richness and a creamy texture when brought to a boil.

The step that matters

Heat the water to scalding, without boiling. Soaking in hot but not boiling water draws out some salt and softens the pork without melting away its fat or making the texture rubbery, so the slices fry better.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, flour, cream, pepper):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Turnipfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, flour, cream, 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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