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Tenderloin Steak and Mushrooms

Tenderloin steaks baked with butter, water, onions, tomatoes, and canned French mushrooms, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tenderloin Steak and Mushrooms

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Place the tenderloin steaks in a well‑buttered dripping pan, ensuring they do not touch each other.

  3. Add 1 cup of boiling water to the pan and cook for 30 minutes, basting often.

Finish and serve

  1. Ten minutes before serving, remove from the oven and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Top each steak with a small slice of onion and a thin slice of tomato.

  3. Pour a little melted butter over the steaks and return to the oven.

  4. Heat the can of French mushrooms in their own liquid, drain, and place on top of the steaks along with the drippings.

  5. Garnish with parsley before serving.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

What each ingredient does

Tenderloin steaks
The main protein, cooked gently in buttered pan with water to stay moist and tender.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the steaks brown and carry flavour in the pan.
French mushrooms
Add savoury, earthy flavour and moisture over the steaks as they finish.

The step that matters

Ten minutes before serving, remove from the oven and season with salt and pepper.. Salt seasons the surface and dissolves into the juices. Timing the seasoning near the end keeps the steaks from drawing out moisture during the long braising-style cook.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, tomato, mushroom, parsley):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, tomato, mushroom, parsley. 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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