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Beef Tenderloin Broiled

Broiled beef tenderloin seasoned with salt and pepper, topped with bacon, served on a heated platter garnished with lettuce or parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,037 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Tenderloin Broiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the beef tenderloin with a clean towel.

  2. Rub the tenderloin lightly with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the tenderloin until very tender.

  2. A few minutes before the meat is done, lay 2 thin slices of bacon on top.

  3. Broil until the bacon is nicely browned.

  4. Serve on a heated platter garnished with lettuce or parsley.

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 + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Beef + lettucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together662 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

Beef tenderloin
Is the main cut, which broiling cooks quickly to a tender result.
Bacon
Renders fat over the meat and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and richness.

The step that matters

Laying the bacon on near the end of broiling. Bacon added too early can burn before the tenderloin is done, while added too late it will not brown. Timing it a few minutes before the meat is finished lets the fat render and the bacon brown without scorching.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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