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Beef Olives

Beef olives are rolled beef steaks stuffed with forcemeat, breaded, fried, and served with a truffle, morel, and mushroom gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Beef Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef into steaks about 5 inches long and ½ inch thick.

  2. Spread forcemeat on each steak, roll them up, and tie with string.

Cook and serve

  1. Mix bread crumbs, egg, nutmeg, pepper, and salt; fry the rolls until brown.

  2. Prepare gravy with truffles, morels, and mushrooms; pour over the beef olives.

  3. Remove the string before serving.

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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump of beef
Forms the outer wrap and provides the meaty flavour of each olive.
Forcemeat made with veal
Adds a soft, moist filling that stays tender inside the rolled beef.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the rolls brown when fried.
Egg
Binds the crumb coating so it adheres to the rolls.
Truffles
Add a strong earthy aroma to the gravy.
Mushrooms
Add savoury depth and body to the gravy.

The step that matters

Fry the rolls until brown. Frying gives the crumb coating its colour and crisp texture through browning, but overcooking can dry the beef and firm the veal filling. Stop once the coating is evenly golden.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, bread, egg, pepper, truffle, mushroom):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, bread, egg, pepper, truffle, mushroom. 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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