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Tenderloin Roast

Tenderloin roast seasoned with pepper and salt, with butter, bacon, rye bread crust, onion, carrot, celery, simmered with stock, sour cream, Madeira wine, and champagne.

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 Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Skin the meat and season it with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Heat butter and a little bacon in a pan.

  3. Add a small piece of rye-bread crust, onion, carrot, and celery, and brown the roast on both sides.

Braise

  1. Pour off excess fat, then add some stock and a cup of sour cream.

  2. Cook slowly on the back of the stove until done.

  3. One-quarter hour before serving, add two tablespoons of Madeira and a little champagne.

Variation

  1. For a back-roast or shoulder-clod, season with salt, pepper, ginger, celery, onion, and tomato.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Tenderloin roast
Main cut of meat that is browned and then cooked slowly until tender.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the roast and carries flavor into the pan.
Sour cream
Adds richness and body to the braising liquid and gives a tangy note.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and aroma to the sauce when added near the end.
Stock
Provides moisture and savory flavor for the slow braise.

The step that matters

Browning the roast on both sides. Searing creates browned flavor through the Maillard reaction. Skipping or rushing it leaves the sauce pale and less flavorful, so the surface should be evenly coloured before liquid is added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, rye, bread, carrot, celery, cream):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, rye, bread, carrot, celery, cream. 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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