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Beef Olives

A preserved beef product made by brining ribs, forming them into a round shape, boiling, and serving with boiled carrots and turnips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beef Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Choose a fine rib and remove the bone.

  2. Rub salt over the inside and skewer the meat into a round form, binding it with tape.

  3. Submerge the meat in brine for 6 days, turning it daily.

Cook and serve

  1. When ready to cook, drain the meat and place it in very hot water.

  2. Boil rapidly for a few minutes, then simmer gently until done.

  3. Remove the skewer and replace it with a plated or silver one.

  4. Serve with boiled carrots and turnips.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

  3. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Beef + turniptop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,940 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Meat + carrottop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,905 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

Ribs of beef
Forms the main body of the dish, with the rolled meat cooking until tender.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and, with the brine, cures it through over several days.
Carrots
Served alongside the meat as a sweet, earthy vegetable accompaniment.
Turnips
Served alongside the meat, adding a mild, slightly peppery vegetable element.

The step that matters

Boil rapidly, then simmer gently. Starting in very hot water and boiling briefly sears the surface and sets the outside, then gentle simmering keeps the meat tender rather than tough and dry. Boiling hard throughout would toughen the fibres.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, carrot. 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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