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Beef Olives

Beef Olives are slices of beef rolled with a suet, breadcrumb, parsley, mace, pepper, salt, and egg stuffing, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Beef Olives

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the grated suet, bread crumbs, minced parsley, ground mace, pepper, coarse sea salt, and beaten egg to make the stuffing.

Roll and bake

  1. Spread the stuffing on each slice of beefsteak, roll them up, and tie with string.

  2. Place the rolled beef olives in a greased baking dish.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish with a pat of Maitre d'hotel butter on each olive.

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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Parsley + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beefsteak
Forms the wrapped outer layer that cooks into tender, savoury bundles.
Grated suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and fat, giving the stuffing body and a light texture.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together inside the rolled slices.

The step that matters

Rolling and tying the olives. If the stuffing is spread too thickly or the rolls are loose, filling can leak out during baking and the beef may cook unevenly. Firm, snug rolls keep the filling inside and help the meat cook through at the same rate.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

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