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Beef Olives

Beef Olives are thinly sliced rump steak rolled with herbs, egg, and bacon, stewed in stock and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 39 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Beef Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the olives

  1. Have the steaks cut rather thin, beat them to make them level, and cut them into 6 or 7 pieces.

  2. Brush the pieces with egg.

  3. Sprinkle with finely minced herbs and season with pepper and salt.

  4. Roll up the pieces tightly and fasten with a small skewer.

Stew

  1. Put the stock in a stewpan that will exactly hold the ingredients.

  2. Lay in the rolls of meat.

  3. Cover them with the bacon cut in thin slices.

  4. Place a piece of paper over that.

  5. Stew them very gently for full 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Take them out and remove the skewers.

  2. Thicken the gravy with butter and flour.

  3. Flavour the gravy with any store sauce that may be preferred.

  4. Give one boil, pour over the meat, and serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

464Calories
40 gProtein
25 gFat
20 gCarbs

Counts 9 of 13 ingredients. The other 4 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Beef100g cooked250
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Bacon1 slice cooked (8g)43
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Mushroom1/2 cup sliced (35g)15
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Saucenot in our table0
Liquornot in our table0
Waternot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Mushroom + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steaks
Provide the meat that is rolled around the filling and becomes tender during stewing.
Egg
Brushed on the meat to help the herbs and seasoning adhere to the surface.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat that bastes the rolls and flavours the stock during the gentle stew.
Stock
Forms the cooking liquid that moistens the meat and becomes the base of the gravy.
Savoury herbs
Add aroma and savoury flavour to the meat filling.

The step that matters

Stewing very gently for the full 2 hours. Gentle, low heat lets the connective tissue in the beef break down slowly, so the meat becomes tender without toughening or drying. A hard boil would firm the proteins and make the rolls tough.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, mushroom, ketchup, onion, beef, egg, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, mushroom, ketchup, onion, beef, egg, pepper. 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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