Name: Baked Tenderloin
Ingredients: tenderloin, cut into small pieces; water; pepper; coarse sea salt; summer savory; bread crumbs; butter

Why it works: Pepper and summer savory work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 671 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Baked Tenderloin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In an earthen dish, layer small pieces of tenderloin with water, sprinkling each layer with pepper, coarse sea salt, and summer savory.
Wet the bread crumbs and season them with salt, pepper, butter, and summer savory.
Spread the seasoned bread crumbs on top of the layered tenderloin.
Bake until cooked through.

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.

Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together671 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Summer savory + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together241 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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