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Beef Tenderloin Baked

A baked beef tenderloin simmered with diced potatoes, turnips, carrots, celery, allspice, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Beef Tenderloin Baked

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the tenderloin well and place it in a dripping pan.

  2. Add ½ cup of water to the pan.

  3. Chop the potatoes, turnips, carrots, and celery into small dice squares and add them to the meat.

Cook

  1. Let the mixture simmer for 30 minutes.

  2. When nearly done, add ½ teaspoon of pounded allspice and 1 tablespoon of butter.

  3. Once cooked, place the meat on a heated platter and pour the sauce over it 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tenderloin
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the protein that is cooked through by simmering.
Potatoes
Add starch that thickens the cooking liquid slightly and adds body to the sauce.
Turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and soft texture as they cook in the pan juices.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color to the sauce as they soften.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish to the sauce.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, turnip, carrot, celery, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, turnip, carrot, celery, butter. 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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