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Beef Olives

Beef slices rolled with tomato sauce, seasoned, and pan‑fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Take thin slices of beef and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Roll the beef slices with a small amount of tomato sauce inside.

  3. Secure the rolls with toothpicks or kitchen twine.

Cook

  1. Cook in a skillet over medium heat until browned and cooked through.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Beef + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,650 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the wrapper around the filling and browns in the pan for savoury flavour.
Tomato sauce
Adds moisture and a tangy flavour inside the rolls as they cook.

The step that matters

Cooking over medium heat. Browning depends on a dry surface and moderate heat. Too high a heat darkens and burns the outside before the centre of the rolls is cooked through, so keep the heat moderate and turn the rolls to brown evenly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Onionfits less well
  4. Carrotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sauce, pepper. 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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