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Pork Chops

Pan-fried pork chops seasoned with onion, sage, pepper, and salt, served hot with apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the pork chops neatly.

Pan-fry

  1. Heat a frying pan and add a bit of butter. Once the pan is hot, add the chops.

  2. Turn the chops often until they are brown all over, about 15 minutes. Check one chop for doneness.

  3. If done, season with minced onion, sage, pepper, and salt.

  4. Serve hot with apple sauce.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

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

  3. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

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, which browns on the surface while cooking through in the pan.
Butter
Conducts heat into the pan surface and adds richness and browning.
Apple sauce
Adds sweetness and acidity that balances the savory, seasoned pork.

The step that matters

Turning the chops often. Frequent turning heats the chops more evenly and limits burning on the surface before the centre is cooked through. Checking doneness with a single chop helps avoid overcooking the rest.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, butter, onion, sage, pepper, sauce):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, onion, sage, pepper, sauce. 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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