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Beef Olives

Beef Olives are beef rolls stuffed with breadcrumbs, suet, herbs, and lemon rind, simmered 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

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into pieces ½ inch thick and 4 inches long.

  2. Beat the beef pieces out with a wet rolling pin.

  3. Chop the trimmings of the beef, suet, parsley, thyme, and marjoram.

  4. Mix the chopped trimmings with the bread crumbs, grated lemon rind, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and egg in a bowl.

Stuff and tie

  1. Stuff each piece of beef with the mixture.

  2. Roll each stuffed piece up.

  3. Tie each roll with string.

Stew and serve

  1. Place the stuffed rolls in a stewpan with the brown sauce.

  2. Stew gently for 45 minutes.

  3. Remove the string.

  4. Serve with mashed potatoes or spinach, pouring the sauce around.

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

Fillet of beef or rump steak
Forms the tender outer wrap that holds the stuffing and becomes soft during gentle stewing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the stuffing so it stays tender rather than wet.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich during cooking.
Egg
Binds the stuffing together so it holds its shape inside the rolls.
Brown sauce
Provides the cooking liquid that gently braises the rolls and forms the serving sauce.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 45 minutes. Gentle heat lets the connective tissue in the beef soften slowly without toughening the meat. Boiling or rapid simmering would make the rolls tough and dry out the stuffing.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

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