Name: Baked Tenderloins
Ingredients: tenderloins of fresh pork; sweet potatoes; coarse sea salt; black pepper; powdered sage

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 Tenderloins

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Wipe the tenderloins with a damp cloth.
Place the tenderloins and sweet potatoes in a roasting pan.
Brown them quickly in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).
Season with salt, pepper, and powdered sage.
Bake for about 40 minutes.

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.

Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sweet potato + sagetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together62 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Sweet potato + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,527 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

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