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Baked Tenderloins

A pork tenderloin stuffed with crumbed stale bread, butter or egg, baked until browned, optionally served with potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Baked Tenderloins

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Split the pork tenderloins into thick slices.

  3. Stuff each slice with the crumbed bread, seasoned with salt and pepper, and moistened with butter or egg.

  4. Fold the tenderloins together and tie or sew them to keep the stuffing inside.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the tenderloins in a dripping pan and bake until thoroughly browned.

  2. If desired, add peeled potatoes to the pan to bake alongside the tenderloins.

  3. Remove the strings 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. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pork tenderloins
Form the main body of the dish, cooking to a browned, tender meat when sliced and baked.
Stale bread
Absorbs moisture and fat to form a soft stuffing that fills the pocket of each slice.
Butter or egg
Moistens the bread stuffing, adding richness and helping it hold together.

The step that matters

Tying or sewing the tenderloins. If the rolled tenderloins are not closed firmly, the stuffing can leak out during baking and the meat may cook unevenly. Secure ties keep the stuffing contained so it stays moist.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, bread, butter, pepper. 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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