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Pork Tenderloins

A roasted or sliced pork tenderloin seasoned with salt, pepper, sage, served with apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pork Tenderloins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Leave the tender loins attached when cutting up the hog.

  2. Cut through the ribs on each side near the loin and across at each end.

  3. Rub the tenderloins with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and sage.

Cook and serve

  1. Roast the tenderloins like ribs.

  2. Cut into thin slices and broil or fry.

  3. Serve with apple 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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 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 tenderloins
Provide the main lean meat that is roasted, sliced, and served.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and helps draw out moisture for a more flavorful surface.
Sage
Adds an aromatic, savory herbal flavor to the pork.
Apple sauce
Adds sweetness and acidity that balances the rich pork.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, sage, 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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