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Tenderloin of Beef

Tenderloin of beef simmered with potatoes, carrots, turnips, celery, allspice, butter, and served with meatballs coated in crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Tenderloin of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tenderloin

  1. Wash the tenderloin well and place it in an oven with 1 pint of water.

  2. Chop the potatoes, carrots, turnips, and celery, then add them to the meat.

  3. Let the mixture simmer slowly, adding allspice and butter near the end.

Make the meatballs

  1. Boil the lean piece of beef until done, then chop finely and mix with onion, salt, and pepper.

  2. Form the mixture into small balls, wet with eggs, and roll in crumbs.

  3. Fry the balls until light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve the tenderloin surrounded by the meatballs and pour the gravy over everything.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  5. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 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

What each ingredient does

Beef tenderloin
Forms the main joint of meat that is cooked slowly in liquid until tender.
Potatoes
Starchy vegetable that thickens the cooking liquid and softens into the gravy.
Eggs
Act as a binding wash so the cracker crumbs adhere to the meatballs.
Cracker or bread crumbs
Form a coating that browns when fried, giving the meatballs a crisp outer layer.
Lean beef
Provides the savory meat base for the meatballs once cooked and finely chopped.

The step that matters

Frying the meatballs until light brown. Eggs and crumbs need enough heat to set and brown without burning. Too little heat leaves the coating soggy and pale, while too much browns the outside before the centre is heated through.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, carrot, turnip, celery, butter, onion):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, carrot, turnip, celery, butter, 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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