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Beef Olives

Beef olives are meatballs made from beef, suet, breadcrumbs, herbs, and lemon rind, baked in brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Beef Olives

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the beef

  1. Slice the beef into pieces about ½ inch thick and 4 inches long, then beat them out with a wet cutlet bat.

  2. Chop the trimmings finely and place them in a bowl.

  3. Chop the beef suet finely after removing the skin.

  4. Rub the bread through a sieve to obtain 3 ounces of crumbs.

  5. Chop the parsley, thyme, and marjoram finely.

Make the filling

  1. Combine the suet, bread crumbs, parsley, thyme, and marjoram with the chopped beef in the bowl.

  2. Grate the lemon rind and add nutmeg to the mixture.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then mix in the egg.

Bake

  1. Shape the mixture into rolls and place them in a baking dish, then pour the brown sauce or stock over them.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for about one hour.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 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

Beef
Forms the main body of the rolls and gives them their meaty flavour and chewy texture.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and tender during baking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the filling so it holds its shape.
Egg
Binds the filling together so the rolls hold their shape when cooked.

The step that matters

Shape the rolls firmly. Loose rolls can open or fall apart in the sauce, because the egg and crumbs bind the filling only when it is packed together tightly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, parsley, thyme, marjoram, lemon, pepper. 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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