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Beef Olives

Beef olives are beef squares stuffed with a breadcrumb and herb dressing, baked and served with a creamy gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. 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 the olives

  1. Pound the beef slice until it is ½ inch thick and cut it into 4-inch squares.

  2. Make a dressing by mixing chopped beef, bread crumbs, cream, salt, sweet marjoram, and the egg.

  3. Sew the dressing into the beef squares, shaping them like olives.

Bake

  1. Place the beef olives in a tin pan with the brown stock.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 20 minutes, basting with the liquid halfway through.

  3. Transfer the beef olives to a dish.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Add cream and flour to the gravy.

  2. While boiling, add a little boiling water and soy sauce or tomato ketchup if desired.

  3. Let the gravy boil once.

  4. Pour the gravy over the beef olives before serving.

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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Marjoram + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the outer wrap that holds the dressing and becomes tender during baking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture in the dressing so it stays soft and holds its shape.
Egg
Binds the dressing so it holds together when shaped and cooked.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the dressing and to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the beef olives.

The step that matters

Basting with the liquid halfway through baking. Beef is lean and can dry out in the oven; basting with the stock keeps the surface moist and the meat tender while it cooks.

Swap the marjoram

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, cream, egg, meat, flour, sauce):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Marjoramthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, cream, egg, meat, flour, sauce. 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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