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Beef Olives

Beef Olives is a dish of thinly sliced beef rolled with forcemeat, fried with olives, simmered in stock, and served with mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Beef Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the olives

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

  2. Flatten the pieces of meat with a rolling pin.

  3. Spread a portion of the forcemeat on each piece.

  4. Roll up the meat and tie with string or fasten with a small skewer.

Braise and finish

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. When hot, add the olives and fry until nicely browned.

  3. Pour in the warm stock and let them simmer gently for 45 minutes.

  4. Thicken the mixture with flour.

  5. Add catsup.

  6. Season with pepper and salt.

  7. Serve around a pyramid of mashed potatoes, with the gravy poured around.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fillet of beef
Forms the wrapped outer layer that holds the filling and cooks into tender meat.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat a soft, binding body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and flavourful during cooking.
Egg or milk
Binds the forcemeat so it holds together inside the rolled beef.
Butter
Fat for frying the olives, promoting browning and rich flavour.
Flour
Thickens the warm stock into a gravy with a smooth body.

The step that matters

Frying the olives until nicely browned. Browning through the meat's surface creates savoury flavour compounds before simmering. Frying in hot butter, rather than cold, gives an even sear and helps the rolls keep their shape.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Thymethe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, parsley, lemon, egg, pepper, 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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