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Beef Olives

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,779 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Beef Olives

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Lay pitted olives cut into thin rings on the steak strips.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt, chopped bacon, and black pepper.

  3. Roll the steak strips and secure with kitchen twine or small skewers.

  4. Dust the rolls with flour and fry in hot fat until slightly browned.

  5. Drain off excess fat, then add flour, pepper, salt, onion slice, and warm water.

  6. Add a dash of Worcestershire sauce and simmer until thickened.

  7. Return the rolls to the pan and gently simmer for about an hour.

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 + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

  4. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, pepper, flour, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Eggplantfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, pepper, flour, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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