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Pork Tenderloins

A pork tenderloin served with fried sweet potatoes or apples and accompanied by a meat sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,208 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Pork Tenderloins

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Butter the pork tenderloin well.

  2. Fry the pork tenderloin until cooked through.

  3. Serve with fried sweet potatoes or apples.

  4. Accompany with a good meat 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. Pork + meattop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Sweet potato + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together133 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Pork + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork tenderloin
Main protein; frying cooks it through to a firm, browned exterior.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the surface brown during frying.
Sweet potatoes
Provide natural sweetness and a starchy, soft texture alongside the pork.
Apples
Add gentle sweetness and acidity that balance the rich pork.

The step that matters

Fry the pork tenderloin until cooked through. Tenderloin is lean and dries out quickly, so it needs enough heat to cook through while staying juicy. Cooking it past doneness makes it tough. Checking the internal temperature helps you stop at the right point.

Swap the sweet potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, butter, apple, meat, sauce):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Sweet potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, apple, meat, 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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