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Tenderloin of Beef

A dish of beef meatballs made from tenderloin and lean beef, served with a gravy of vegetables and spices.

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

Make the gravy

  1. Wash the tenderloin well.

  2. Place the tenderloin in an oven with 1 pint of water.

  3. Chop the vegetables.

  4. Add the chopped vegetables to the meat to flavor the gravy.

  5. Let the mixture simmer slowly.

  6. Add 1 teaspoon of pounded allspice.

  7. Add 1 tablespoon of butter.

  8. If the gravy is too greasy, skim off some melted suet.

Make the meatballs

  1. Boil the lean piece of beef until perfectly done.

  2. Chop the boiled lean beef finely.

  3. Flavor the chopped beef with a small quantity of onion, salt, and pepper.

  4. Form the mixture into small balls.

  5. Wet the balls with eggs.

  6. Roll the wet balls in crumbs.

  7. Fry the meatballs until light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve the tenderloin with the meatballs around it.

  2. Pour the rich gravy over the whole 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 meat and, simmered with vegetables, the body of the gravy.
Carrots, turnips and celery
Release their flavour and natural sugars into the liquid, sweetening and thickening the gravy.
Eggs
Act as a binder that helps the crumb coating stick to the meatballs.
Cracker or bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating on the outside of the meatballs when fried.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and giving the gravy a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Frying the meatballs until light brown. Frying in fat browns the crumb coating through the Maillard reaction. Too little heat leaves them pale and soggy, while too much can burn the coating before the centre is hot.

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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