Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Beef Olives
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the rolls
Cut the steak into pieces and flatten them with a meat roller.
Sprinkle the pieces with flour.
In a bowl, mix the force-meat, bread crumbs, and egg until well combined.
Spread a little of the mixture over each piece of steak and roll them up tightly, securing with a skewer.
Coat and fry
Dip each roll in the egg yolk, then coat with bread crumbs.
Fry the rolls in hot oil until pale brown.
Serve
Serve with brown sauce.
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.
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,924 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,056 recipes
Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).
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Meat + vealtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,890 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Steak
- Forms the outer wrapper that holds the filling and becomes tender when cooked through.
- Force-meat
- Provides a soft, moist filling that keeps the rolls juicy inside.
- Egg
- Binds the filling so it holds together when rolled and sliced.
- Bread crumbs
- Coat the outside so the rolls brown and crisp when fried.
- Egg yolk
- Acts as a glue so the crumb coating sticks to the rolls.
The step that matters
Rolling and securing the steak. If the steak is not rolled tightly and the skewer is not secured, the filling can leak out during frying. Tight rolling keeps the filling enclosed and the shape even.
“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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