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Pork Tenderloin

A pork tenderloin sautéed with onion, butter, gravy, and diced boiled new potatoes, served with cucumber salad.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pork Tenderloin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the onion in a chafing dish with butter until slightly cooked.

  2. Cut the pork tenderloin into dice and add the diced pork to the dish.

  3. Cook thoroughly.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the gravy or broth, salt, and cayenne pepper, and mix well.

  2. Cut the boiled new potatoes into dice and add them to the dish.

  3. Cover and serve with a cucumber salad.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Pork tenderloin
Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks through.
Gravy or broth
Adds liquid and savoury flavour, keeping the diced meat moist as it cooks.
New potatoes
Add starch and body, soaking up the savoury liquid and making the dish more filling.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries in butter, building a base flavour.

The step that matters

Cook thoroughly. Pork must be cooked fully through so it is safe to eat, yet overcooking dries lean tenderloin and makes it tough. Dicing small and cooking until no pink remains helps balance safety and tenderness.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, pepper, potato. 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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