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Beef Olives

Beef Olives are thin slices of beef rolled with forcemeat, fried, then stewed in flavored brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Beef Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the olives

  1. Beat the steak with a rolling pin for a few minutes.

  2. Cut the steak into thin, even slices.

  3. Flatten each slice with a wet knife and spread with a layer of forcemeat.

  4. Roll up the slices and secure with crochet cotton.

Make the forcemeat

  1. To make the forcemeat, mix breadcrumbs with parsley, onion, herbs, lemon peel, and bacon.

  2. Season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg, then moisten with beaten egg to form a soft paste.

Fry and stew

  1. Dust the rolls with flour and fry in clarified dripping until browned.

  2. Stew the rolls gently in flavored brown sauce for 1.5 to 2 hours.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean steak
Forms the wrapper and provides the meat that becomes tender during slow stewing.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the forcemeat so it holds together inside the roll.
Beaten egg
Binds the forcemeat into a soft paste that holds its shape when rolled.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor to the forcemeat, keeping it moist during stewing.
Flour
Dusting helps the rolls brown evenly when fried and thickens the sauce slightly.

The step that matters

Rolling and securing the slices. If the slices are not flattened evenly or the rolls are loose, the forcemeat can leak out during frying and stewing. Tight rolls tied firmly keep the filling inside and the shape intact.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, lemon, pepper, nutmeg, egg, 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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