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Beef Olives

Beef Olives are beef steaks rolled with a forcemeat mixture, stewed in gravy and wine, finished with mushroom catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Beef Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Prepare the forcemeat by mixing bread crumbs, minced beef suet, chopped parsley, grated lemon peel, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

  2. Bind the mixture with the beaten egg yolks.

  3. Spread a layer of the forcemeat over each steak, then roll and tie them with thread.

Fry and stew

  1. Fry the rolls lightly in beef dripping.

  2. Place them in a stew pan with brown gravy, white wine, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Thicken the sauce with flour and butter.

  4. Cover the pan and let them stew gently for one hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, stir in mushroom catsup and garnish with pickles.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 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

Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat body so it holds together when rolled.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and rich during stewing.
Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat together so it holds its shape around the steaks.
Flour
Thickens the stewing sauce as it cooks with the butter.
Brown gravy
Forms the savoury liquid that the rolls stew in, adding depth and moisture.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and beef.

The step that matters

Stewing the rolls gently. Gentle, covered simmering lets the beef become tender without drying out or toughening the muscle fibres. A hard boil can toughen the meat and break up the sauce.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

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