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Tenderloin of Beef with Mushroom

Tenderloin of beef roasted with onion, carrot, celery, and served with mushroom sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Tenderloin of Beef with Mushroom

Oven, in the book's wordsA good hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Trim the tenderloin of beef and sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  2. Place the beef in a roasting pan with the chopped onion, carrot, and finely shredded celery.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C), turning often.

  2. Cut into small portions and serve with mushroom 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.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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
Provides the main protein; a tender cut that cooks quickly and stays juicy when roasted hot.
Onion
Releases moisture and sugars in the pan, adding savory sweetness and browning to the drippings.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and aromatic flavor to the pan juices as it softens and browns.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, savory flavor to the pan juices used around the roast.

The step that matters

Turning the beef often in the hot oven. Frequent turning helps the whole surface brown evenly and keeps the tenderloin from overcooking on one side. Heat drives the Maillard reaction that builds flavor and color on the exterior, so uneven turning gives a patchy crust and uneven doneness.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, carrot, celery, mushroom, sauce. 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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