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Beef Olives a LA Game

A lean steak rolled with bacon, seasoned, and braised in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 a LA Game

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Prepare the steak by beating it out.

  2. Sprinkle the top side with salt, pepper, grated lemon peel, nutmeg, parsley, and thyme.

  3. Lay on strips of bacon, roll up the steak, and tie with kitchen twine.

Brown and braise

  1. Heat clarified dripping or butter in a sauté pan until hot.

  2. Add the rolled steak to the pan and brown for a few minutes on all sides.

  3. Remove the steak, pour off excess fat, and wipe out the pan.

  4. Return the steak to the pan and pour over gravy or sauce, ensuring it is thin.

  5. Cook for 1 to 2 hours, adding more thickening towards the end if desired.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + lemontop 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

Lean steak
Forms the wrapped outer layer and provides the main meat that becomes tender during slow cooking.
Bacon
Adds fat and salty, smoky flavour that seeps into the lean beef as it cooks.
Clarified dripping or butter
Conducts heat for browning the rolls and adds richness to the surface.
Gravy or sauce
Supplies the moist cooking liquid that keeps the beef from drying out during the long simmer.
Grated lemon peel
Adds bright aromatic oils that lift the rich meat flavour.

The step that matters

Browning the rolls before the long cook. Searing the outside over high heat creates browned flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pouring off the excess fat and wiping the pan then keeps the sauce from turning greasy during the long braise.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, lemon, parsley, thyme, butter, sauce):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, lemon, parsley, thyme, butter, sauce. 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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