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Beef Olives

Stuffed beef slices rolled with forcemeat, fried, then stewed in stock and thickened with flour and mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Make a forcemeat by mixing bread crumbs, parsley, herbs, suet, pepper, salt, and binding with the egg.

  2. Cut the rump steak into thin slices, about 4 inches long and 2 inches wide.

  3. Fill each slice with the forcemeat.

  4. Roll the slice tightly.

  5. Fasten the roll with string.

  6. Coat the roll with egg and bread crumbs.

Fry and stew

  1. Fry the roll in hot fat until light brown.

  2. Transfer the meat to a stewpan.

  3. Add stock to the stewpan.

  4. Let it stew for about 30 minutes.

  5. Thicken the gravy with flour and mushroom ketchup.

Serve

  1. Serve 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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steak
Forms the outer wrapper that encloses the forcemeat and becomes tender during stewing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture in the forcemeat and form a crisp, browned coating when fried.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and rich during cooking.
Egg
Binds the forcemeat together and helps the coating adhere to the roll.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a gravy as it is mixed in.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury, umami depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Rolling and tying the roll tightly. If the roll is loose, the forcemeat can escape or fall out during frying and stewing, and the meat may cook unevenly. A snug roll holds its filling and keeps its shape while the meat softens.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, egg, flour, mushroom, ketchup):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, egg, flour, mushroom, ketchup. 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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