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Beef Olives

Beef olives are rolled rump steak pieces seasoned, wrapped in bacon, stewed in stock, and served with a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Beef Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rolls

  1. Cut the steak into 6 or 7 thin pieces and beat them to make them level.

  2. Brush the pieces with egg and sprinkle with finely minced herbs, then season with pepper and salt.

  3. Roll up the pieces tightly and fasten with a small skewer.

Stew and serve

  1. Place the stock in a stewpan that fits the rolls snugly, then lay the meat rolls in the pan.

  2. Cover the rolls with bacon slices and place a piece of paper over them.

  3. Stew gently for 2 hours, ensuring they cook slowly for better flavor.

  4. Remove the rolls, take out the skewers, and thicken the gravy with butter and flour.

  5. Serve the beef olives with the thickened gravy.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sauce + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Rump steak
Forms the main body of the rolls and becomes tender through slow, gentle stewing.
Egg
Acts as a binder that helps the herb and seasoning coating adhere to the beef.
Savory herbs
Add aroma and savory flavor to the meat inside the rolls.
Bacon
Lies over the rolls during stewing, adding savory fat and smoky flavor to the cooking liquid.
Stock
Provides the cooking liquid that gently braises the rolls and becomes the base of the gravy.
Butter and flour
Thicken the cooking liquid into a smooth gravy.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 2 hours. Gentle, low heat lets the collagen in the rump steak break down slowly into tender meat. A hard boil toughens muscle fibers and can leave the rolls dry and chewy.

“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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