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Beef Olives

Beef olives are rolled strips of beef mixed with breadcrumbs, suet, herbs, and catsup, simmered in stock and served with mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Beef Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the olives

  1. Cut the fillet of beef into thin strips, 2 inches wide and 4 inches long.

  2. Flatten the pieces of meat with a rolling pin.

  3. Spread a portion of the forcemeat on each piece.

  4. Roll up the meat.

  5. Tie with string or fasten with a small skewer.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. When hot, add the beef olives.

  3. Fry until nicely browned.

  4. Pour in the warm stock.

  5. Let them simmer gently for 45 minutes.

  6. Thicken the sauce with flour.

  7. Add catsup.

  8. Season with pepper and salt.

  9. Serve around a pyramid of mashed potatoes.

  10. Pour the gravy around the dish.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Fillet of beef
Forms the wrapped outer meat that becomes tender when simmered slowly in stock.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the forcemeat so it stays inside the rolled beef.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and flavourful during cooking.
Butter
Browns the beef olives in the pan and adds richness to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth gravy.
Warm stock
Provides liquid for simmering, which softens the beef and forms the gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the olives before simmering. Searing the rolled beef in hot butter builds browned flavour on the surface. Frying too gently steams the meat, leaving a pale, less flavourful result.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Thymethe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Sagefits less well

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