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To Dress Cold Beef That is Underdone, Called Beef Olives

A cold beef dish where thin slices are coated with breadcrumbs and seasonings, rolled, and stewed in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Dress Cold Beef That is Underdone, Called Beef Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble the olives

  1. Lay the beef slices flat on a surface.

  2. Mix bread crumbs, minced shallot, suet, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Spread the mixture on each beef slice.

  3. Roll the slices tightly and secure with a small skewer.

Stew

  1. Place the rolls in a stew pan with gravy and water. Stew until tender.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Bread + shallottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Beef + shallottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef slices
Wrap the filling and become tender during slow stewing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and bind the filling so it holds together.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich.
Shallot
Adds a mild, savoury aroma to the filling.
Gravy
Provides cooking liquid that moistens and flavours the rolls as they stew.

The step that matters

Roll the slices tightly and secure with a skewer. Loose rolls let the filling escape into the stew liquid and can open up during stewing. A tight roll, held by a skewer, keeps the filling inside while the beef softens.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, pepper. 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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