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Pork Tenderloins

Broiled pork tenderloins seasoned with butter, lemon, onion, pepper, salt, sage, served with potatoes and apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 887 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Pork Tenderloins

Ingredients

Directions

Broil

  1. Broil the pork tenderloins over a clear, steady fire, turning often until they begin to drip. Cook for 20 minutes if small, longer if large.

Season and rest

  1. Place on a heated dish and cover with a mixture of butter, lemon juice, onion juice, pepper, salt, and sage.

  2. Allow the mixture to melt and cover closely.

  3. Leave over hot water for several minutes to let the seasoning sink into the meat.

Serve

  1. Serve with browned whole potatoes and 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. Lemon + sagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pork tenderloins
The main cut, which cooks through over the fire and becomes the centre of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the seasoning, carrying flavour into the meat as it melts.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the savoury flavour of the meat.
Whole potatoes
A starchy side that browns, balancing the rich, savoury meat.

The step that matters

Turn the tenderloins often over the broil. Frequent turning exposes each side to steady heat, so the meat cooks evenly and browns without scorching or drying out on one face.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, lemon, onion, pepper, sage, 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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