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Red-Braised Pork

By epicurious · From Open Recipes · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Star anise and cassia share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 6 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By epicurious. 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. Star anise + cassiatop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pork + chickentop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Ginger + star anisetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Onion + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,808 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Pork + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together18,199 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

Flavor stand-ins for the cassia

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, ginger, onion, wine, chicken, star anise, sauce):

  1. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Cuminbetter flavor fit
  4. Cassiathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, ginger, onion, wine, chicken, star anise, sauce. 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).