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Beef Olives

A rolled rump steak stuffed with bacon, suet, egg, breadcrumbs, parsley, and thyme, baked in stock and served with a flour‑butter gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Flatten the rump steak.

  3. Season the rump steak with salt and pepper.

  4. Place bacon, suet, egg, bread crumbs, parsley, and thyme on the steak.

  5. Roll the steak tightly.

  6. Secure the roll with string.

Bake

  1. Brown the beef olives in a pan.

  2. Place the browned beef olives in a baking dish.

  3. Pour stock over the beef olives.

  4. Bake the beef olives for 2 hours.

  5. Remove the string from the beef olives.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy with a mixture of flour and butter.

  2. Add lemon juice to the gravy.

  3. Pour the gravy over the beef olives.

  4. Serve the beef olives on a bed of mashed potatoes or spinach.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steak
Forms the outer wrapper that holds the filling together and gives the meat its main flavour.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat that bastes the filling and seasons the meat as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and tender during the long cooking.
Egg
Binds the filling so it holds together when sliced.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and fat in the filling, giving it body and a softer texture.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth gravy when cooked with butter.

The step that matters

Securing the roll tightly with string. A loose roll lets filling escape and the steak open during browning and baking. Tight rolling and firm tying keep the filling enclosed and the olives neat when sliced.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, egg, bread, parsley, flour, butter, lemon):

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Thymethe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, egg, bread, parsley, flour, butter, lemon. 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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