Name: Pork Tenderloins
Ingredients: Pork tenderloins; Butter; Lemon juice; Onion juice; Pepper; Coarse sea salt; Powdered sage; Whole potatoes; Apple sauce

Why it works: Lemon and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 887 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Pork Tenderloins

Ingredients

Directions

Broil the pork tenderloins over a clear, steady fire, turning often until they begin to drip.
Cook for 20 minutes if small, longer if large.
Place on a heated dish.
Mix butter, lemon juice, onion juice, pepper, salt, and powdered sage; pour over the pork.
Turn the pork in the mixture as it melts.
Cover closely and let sit over hot water for several minutes to allow seasoning to penetrate.
Serve with browned whole potatoes and apple sauce.

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.

Lemon + sagetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together887 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, butter, lemon, onion, pepper, sage, potato):

Limefits better
Avocadofits better
Orangefits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, lemon, onion, pepper, sage, potato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.