Name: Beef Olives Another Way
Ingredients: square steaks; forcemeat; flour; butter; 1 whole onion; 1 tablespoon mushroom ketchup; 1 teaspoon anchovy sauce; cold soup; white pepper

Why it works: Ketchup and sauce 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 Another Way

Ingredients

Directions

Flatten the square steaks with a rolling pin.
Spread forcemeat on each steak and roll them up tightly.
Skewer four rolled steaks with two small skewers each and dust with flour.
Heat butter in a saucepan until frothy, then add the beef olives.
Brown the olives on both sides, then drain off excess butter.
Add the whole onion, mushroom ketchup, and anchovy sauce to the pan.
Cover and let them stew for a few minutes.
Mix a little flour with cold soup and add it to the pan.
Let everything stew together for a few minutes, then serve with sauce poured over.

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.

Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,099 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ketchup + anchovytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together479 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Onion + mushroomtop 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

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, onion, mushroom, ketchup, anchovy, sauce):

Capersfits better
Garlicfits better
Thymefits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, onion, mushroom, ketchup, anchovy, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.