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Beef Olives

Beef Olives are rolled tender steaks filled with sweetbread, truffles, morels, eschalot, herbs, and cream, fried then stewed in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Beef Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a pan, stir together sweetbread, truffles, morels, eschalot, parsley, thyme, lemon peel, egg yolks, nutmeg, and cream over low heat for 10 minutes.

  2. Spread the mixture on the tender steaks, roll them tightly, and secure with skewers.

Fry and stew

  1. Fry the rolled steaks in hot oil until golden brown.

  2. Remove from oil and stew in beef gravy, catsup, Port wine, and mushrooms for 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Cut the steaks in half, serve with the cut side up, and pour gravy around them.

  2. Garnish with lemon or pickled mushrooms.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the filling and help it set gently into a cohesive mixture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the filling, keeping it soft and tender.
Beef gravy
Provides liquid and savory flavor as the rolls stew.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the gravy during stewing.
Tender steaks
Form the outer wrapper that holds the filling in rolls.
Sweetbread
Forms the main soft, rich body of the filling.

The step that matters

Frying the rolled steaks until golden brown. Searing creates browning through the Maillard reaction, adding flavor and color to the outside, and helps the rolls hold their shape before stewing.

“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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