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Beep Olives

Beef squares stuffed with a mixture of chopped beef, breadcrumbs, cream, and seasonings, baked and served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Beep 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. Mix chopped beef, bread crumbs, cream, salt, marjoram, and egg to make a dressing.

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

Bake and make the gravy

  1. Place the stuffed beef 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 cooked beef to a dish and add cream and flour to the gravy.

  4. While the gravy is boiling, add a little boiling water and soy sauce or ketchup if desired.

  5. Let it boil once and pour over the 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 wrapper that holds the stuffing together and becomes tender when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the cream and egg, giving the stuffing a softer, less dense texture.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds its shape when rolled and baked.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the stuffing and thickens the gravy with flour.
Brown stock
Provides liquid for baking and the base flavour for the gravy.

The step that matters

Sewing the dressing into the beef squares. If the stuffing is packed too loosely or the beef is not sealed well, the filling can leak into the stock during baking. Sealing the rolls firmly keeps the filling inside and the olives intact.

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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