Why it works: Flour and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,675 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Beef Olives
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Prepare forcemeat by mixing breadcrumbs, suet, parsley, and seasoning.
Bind the forcemeat with egg or milk.
Spread a little forcemeat on each slice of beef.
Roll up the beef slices and tie them with thread.
Brown and stew
Roll each beef olive in flour.
Heat a pan and lightly brown the beef olives on both sides.
Remove excess fat from the pan and add water or stock.
Stew gently for about one hour.
Finish and serve
Lift out the beef olives and remove the thread.
Thicken the gravy with flour, season, and pour over the beef olives.
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.
-
Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,675 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,866 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
-
Parsley + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,765 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
-
Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,677 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Top side of beef
- Forms the wrapping around the filling and becomes tender during slow stewing.
- Breadcrumbs
- Give the forcemeat body and absorb fat and moisture so the filling holds together.
- Suet
- Adds fat to the forcemeat, keeping the filling moist and rich as it cooks.
- Flour
- Coats the rolls so they brown, and later thickens the gravy.
- Egg or milk
- Binds the forcemeat so it stays together inside the rolled beef.
The step that matters
Lightly brown the beef olives on both sides. Browning in fat builds savoury flavour and colour in the flour coating. Stewing then keeps the beef tender, and gentle heat stops the rolls from falling apart.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, egg):
- Jalapenofits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Turmericfits better
- Parsleythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, 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.
You might also like
Roast Beef211 recipes
Beef Loaf175 recipes
Corned Beef87 recipes
Beef Broth67 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.