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Fillets of Beef with Olives

A savory beef dish with olives, vegetables, and a wine‑infused sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,665 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Fillets of Beef with Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into triangular pieces.

  2. Sprinkle with lemon juice and brush with olive oil.

  3. Let sit for 1 hour.

Make the gravy

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter.

  2. Add the chopped carrot, onion, celery, tomato, herbs, and garlic, and fry for 10-15 minutes.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook until browned.

  4. Add the stock and boil for 20 minutes, skimming off any scum.

  5. Strain the mixture and remove all fat.

  6. Stone the olives.

  7. Add them along with the wine and sauces to the gravy, and heat without boiling.

Grill and serve

  1. Grill the fillets.

  2. Arrange them in a circle on a serving dish.

  3. Pile the olives in the center.

  4. Pour the sauce over and around them.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 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

Beef fillets
Provide the tender meat that is grilled and served as the main component.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a gravy when cooked with the melted fat and vegetables.
Butter or dripping
Carries the vegetables' flavour and fat for frying the gravy base.
Olives
Add salty, briny flavour to the gravy and the served dish.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the gravy, adding savoury depth.
Port or claret
Adds wine-based richness and acidity to the gravy.

The step that matters

Heat the gravy without boiling. Boiling after the olives and wine are added can toughen the flavour and thin the sauce's body, so it should only be heated gently through.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, lemon, olive, garlic, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, lemon, olive, garlic, pepper, butter, flour. 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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