Why it works: Olive and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,263 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Farced Olives
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the olives
Stone the olives using a small vegetable stamp or a pea shooter.
In a bowl, mix the sardines or tuna, butter, and cayenne to create a filling.
Fill the stoned olives with the sardine mixture.
Prepare the croutons
Fry the croutons until golden and let them cool.
Assemble and serve
Spread lobster butter on each crouton and place a filled olive upright on top.
Serve as a savory dish at the end of a dinner.
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.
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Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,263 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Olive + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,887 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Lobster + buttertop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,609 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Olive + lobstertop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together252 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sardines or tuna
- Provides the savory, rich filling that contrasts with the briny olive.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth texture that binds the filling together.
- Lobster butter
- Adds rich, savory flavour to the crouton base beneath the olive.
- Croutons
- Provide a crisp, golden base that holds the filled olive upright.
The step that matters
Fry the croutons until golden. Frying bread in fat browns it through the Maillard reaction, producing a crisp, flavourful base. Underfrying leaves it soft and soggy, while overfrying makes it bitter and brittle.
“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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