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Beef Olives

Beef olives are rolled rump steak pieces coated in egg and herbs, wrapped in bacon, stewed in stock, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Beef Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rolls

  1. Cut the steak into 6 or 7 thin pieces.

  2. Brush each piece with egg and sprinkle with minced herbs.

  3. Season with pepper and salt.

  4. Place a thin slice of bacon on each piece.

  5. Roll up the pieces tightly.

  6. Fasten with a small skewer.

Stew and finish

  1. Place the stock in a stewpan.

  2. Add the meat rolls.

  3. Stew gently for 2 hours or more.

  4. Remove the skewers.

  5. Thicken the gravy with butter and flour.

  6. Flavor with sauce.

  7. Bring to a boil.

  8. Pour over the meat.

  9. Serve.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sauce + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steak
Forms the main meat that becomes tender during gentle stewing.
Egg
Brushed on the meat to help the herbs adhere to the surface.
Butter
Enriches the gravy and adds richness when combined with flour.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat rolls.
Bacon
Adds savory fat that melts into the meat during stewing.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 2 hours or more. Rump steak is a tough cut with lots of connective tissue. Slow, gentle simmering at low heat converts collagen into gelatin, making the meat tender. A hard boil toughens the muscle fibers and can leave the rolls dry and chewy.

“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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