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Tenderloin of Beef

Tenderloin of Beef is a stew of tenderloin, potatoes, carrots, turnips, celery, allspice, butter, lean beef, onion, and meatballs served with 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. Remove the tenderloin from the hind-quarter of the animal.

  2. Wash the tenderloin.

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

  4. Add the chopped potatoes, carrots, turnips, and celery to the meat.

  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 balls in breadcrumbs.

  7. Fry the meatballs until light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve the tenderloin surrounded by the meatballs.

  2. 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
Forms the main roasted cut that gives the dish its body and meaty flavor.
Potatoes
Break down during simmering to thicken the gravy and add starchy body.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color to the gravy as they cook.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory flavor to the cooking liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that rounds out the gravy.
Eggs
Bind the meatball coating so the breadcrumbs adhere before frying.

The step that matters

Fry the meatballs until light brown. Breadcrumb-coated balls brown through the Maillard reaction, which needs enough surface heat and dryness. Too little heat leaves them pale and greasy, while too much browns the crumbs before the centers are heated through.

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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