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Beef Olives

Beef Olives are beef rolls stuffed with parsley, thyme, marjoram, breadcrumbs, and brown sauce, then stewed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 pieces with a wet rolling pin.

Make the stuffing

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

  2. Mix the chopped ingredients with bread crumbs, lemon rind, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and the egg.

Stuff, roll and stew

  1. Stuff each piece of beef with the mixture.

  2. Roll each stuffed piece up.

  3. Tie each roll with string.

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

  5. Stew gently for 45 minutes.

  6. Remove the string from the rolls.

Serve

  1. Serve with mashed potatoes or spinach, pouring 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

Beef fillet or rump steak
Forms the wrapping around the stuffing and becomes tender during gentle stewing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body so it holds together when rolled.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich during stewing.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds its shape when cut and served.
Brown sauce
Supplies liquid for stewing, keeping the rolls moist and flavouring them.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 45 minutes. Gentle heat lets the tough beef become tender without boiling, which would toughen the meat and can break the rolls open.

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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