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Olive Pie, Beef

A pie made with beef fillet, suet, bread crumbs, parsley, spices, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Olive Pie, Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rolls

  1. Make a forcemeat by mixing suet, bread crumbs, parsley, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and egg yolk.

  2. Cut thin slices of beef, 4 inches long and 2 inches wide.

  3. Spread forcemeat on each slice and roll them up securely.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the rolls side by side in a deep pie dish, piling them high in the center.

  2. Pour gravy over the rolls and line the edges of the dish with pie crust.

  3. Cover with another layer of pie crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the pie, providing meaty flavor and substance when cooked.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and rich as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the forcemeat so it holds together in the rolls.
Egg yolk
Binds the forcemeat and adds richness to hold the filling together.
Gravy
Supplies moisture and savory flavor that keeps the beef tender during baking.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, parsley, pepper, egg, beef. 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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