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Beef Olives

Beef Olives is a dish of rolled beef strips served in a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef Olives

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the olives

  1. Cut the beef into thin strips, 4 inches long and 2 inches wide.

  2. Beat the strips with a rolling pin.

  3. Mince the trimmings of the meat.

  4. Mix the minced trimmings with bread crumbs, salt, pepper, suet, onion, parsley, and egg.

  5. Spread a little mixture on each strip of meat.

  6. Roll up each strip.

  7. Skewer the rolled strips neatly.

Brown and simmer

  1. Heat butter in a pan.

  2. Brown the olives.

  3. Remove the olives.

  4. Add flour to the pan.

  5. Brown the flour.

  6. Gradually add stock or water.

  7. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  8. Return the olives.

  9. Simmer slowly for 1.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Dish the cooked olives in a ring.

  2. Season the gravy.

  3. Strain the gravy over the dish.

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

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steak
Forms the wrapped outer layer that becomes tender during slow simmering.
Flour
Browned in the pan fat, then thickens the stock into a gravy.
Butter
Fat for browning the olives and the flour, adding savoury flavour.
Suet
Adds fat to the filling, keeping it moist and rich during cooking.
Egg
Binds the filling so it holds together when rolled and simmered.
Bread crumbs
Absorbs moisture and helps the filling hold its shape.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly for 1.5 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the tough beef strips tender and prevents the liquid from boiling hard, which would toughen the meat and break up the gravy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, pepper, flour, bread, egg, butter. 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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