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Pork Tenderloins

Pork tenderloins fried and served with a gravy of flour, butter, milk or cream, optionally seasoned with Worcestershire sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Pork Tenderloins

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the pork

  1. Fry the pork tenderloins in a little lard, turning to cook through.

  2. Remove the tenderloins and keep them hot.

Make the gravy

  1. In the hot fat, dredge in a little flour; add more butter or lard if needed.

  2. Stir until browned, then add a little milk or cream and stir briskly.

  3. Pour the gravy over the tenderloins and add Worcestershire sauce if desired.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

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

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pork tenderloins
The main cut, cooked through in hot fat until tender and browned on the outside.
Lard
Fat for frying that conducts heat evenly and browns the meat and the flour.
Flour
Starch that thickens the gravy once it is cooked in the fat and combined with liquid.
Butter
Extra fat for the gravy base that adds richness and helps the flour brown.
Milk or cream
Liquid that turns the flour-fat base into a smooth, creamy gravy.

The step that matters

Stir the milk or cream in briskly. Flour starch swells as it meets liquid, so adding the milk or cream while stirring vigorously spreads the starch evenly and prevents lumps in the gravy.

“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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