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Tenderloin of Beef

Tenderloin of Beef with Meatballs served in a rich gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tenderloin

  1. Wash the tenderloin and place it in an oven with 1 pint of water.

  2. Chop the potatoes, carrots, turnips, and celery, then add them to the meat.

  3. Let the mixture simmer slowly, adding the allspice and butter near the end.

Make the meatballs

  1. Boil the lean piece of beef until fully cooked, then chop finely.

  2. Mix the chopped beef with onion, salt, and pepper, then form into small balls.

  3. Wet the balls with eggs and roll them in crumbs, then fry until light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve the tenderloin with the fried meatballs around it, and pour the rich gravy over the dish.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  5. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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 cut of meat, which stays tender when simmered slowly with moisture.
Eggs
Bind the coating so the crumbs adhere to the meatballs.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating on the meatballs when fried.
Potatoes
Thicken the cooking liquid as they break down, adding body to the gravy.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavour to the simmering liquid and gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the gravy near the end of cooking.

The step that matters

Frying the meatballs until light brown. The egg and crumb coating needs gentle, even heat. Too hot and the outside browns before the interior is warmed through, while too cool and the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, carrot, turnip, celery, butter, onion):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, carrot, turnip, celery, butter, onion. 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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