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Tenderloin a LA Jardiniere

Pork tenderloins roasted with carrots, onions, peas, and potatoes, finished with butter, sugar, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 8,053 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and roast

  1. Wash, trim, and lard the tenderloins.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, and place in a roasting pan.

  3. Pour 1 tablespoon of butter over each tenderloin.

  4. Add carrot and onion slices to the bottom of the pan.

  5. Roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  6. When light brown, add boiling water and baste frequently until done.

Cook the vegetables

  1. Slice the carrot into fine strips and place in a saucepan.

  2. Cover with boiling water, add ½ tablespoon of sugar, and boil until tender.

  3. Drain the peas and rinse with cold water.

  4. Place in a saucepan, cover with boiling water, add 1 teaspoon of sugar, and cook for 15 minutes.

  5. Mix 1 tablespoon of cornstarch with ½ tablespoon of butter.

  6. Add to the peas with ½ teaspoon of salt and cook for 2 minutes.

  7. Stir in parsley.

  8. Finish the carrots the same way as the peas.

Serve

  1. Serve the tenderloins on a hot dish, surrounded by peas, carrots, and clusters of small parisienne potatoes.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + peastop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together21,599 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
Main protein; roasting cooks it through while basting keeps the meat moist.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the meat and pan surfaces brown.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cooking liquid of the peas into a glossy, lightly thickened coating.
Carrot
Sweetens gently when cooked with sugar and adds colour and tender texture to the dish.
Peas
Provide a sweet, tender vegetable that the cornstarch-thickened butter coats.

The step that matters

When light brown, add boiling water and baste frequently until done.. Adding boiling water after browning deglazes the pan and creates steam-moistened juices, while frequent basting keeps the surface from drying out before the centre is cooked through.

Flavor stand-ins for the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, butter, carrot, onion, sugar, parsley):

  1. Beansbetter flavor fit
  2. Sesameabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Peasthe original
  4. Lima beansabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, butter, carrot, onion, sugar, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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