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Beef Olives

Beef olives are thin slices of pot roast rolled with bread crumbs, onion, parsley, and butter, then baked or simmered in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Beef Olives

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 filling

  1. Spread each slice of beef with a mixture of bread crumbs, grated onion, salt, pepper, and chopped parsley moistened with melted butter.

  2. Roll up the slices and secure with a wooden toothpick.

Assemble and cook

  1. Place in a casserole or baking dish.

  2. Cover with gravy or stock made from a bouillon cube dissolved in hot water and slightly thickened.

  3. Simmer slowly on the stove or bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Thin slices of pot roast
Forms the outer wrap that holds the filling and becomes tender during slow cooking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the melted butter and onion juices, keeping the filling moist and bound.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the crumb filling.
Grated onion
Adds savory flavor and aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Rolling and securing the slices. If the rolls are loose or the toothpick is missing, the filling can spill out into the liquid during simmering or baking, leaving the olives dry and the sauce cloudy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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