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Baked Pork Blades

A simple baked pork dish seasoned with salt, pepper, onion, and optional sage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage 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 ↓

Baked Pork Blades

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Wash the pork blades thoroughly.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Add the finely chopped onion and sage if desired.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with boiling water and bake at 350°F (175°C) until tender.

  2. Remove the cover just before serving if the pork is not brown enough.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork blades
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, moist baking.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory flavor as it softens during baking.

The step that matters

Cover with boiling water and bake until tender. Baking covered in liquid keeps the meat moist while collagen slowly breaks down, so the pork becomes tender. Removing the cover near the end lets the surface brown.

Swap the sage

The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, onion):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Sagethe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

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