Why it works: Olive and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,922 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Olive-sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the olives
Remove the stones from the olives by paring the fruit around them in a corkscrew motion.
Weigh the prepared olives and blanch them in boiling water for 5 minutes.
Drain the olives and transfer them to cold water for 30 to 60 minutes, depending on their saltiness.
Make the sauce
Drain the olives again and stew them gently in the brown gravy for 15 to 25 minutes.
Add the lemon juice and serve the sauce hot.
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.
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Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,922 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Olives
- Provide the main flavour and firm, meaty pieces that hold their shape in the sauce.
- Rich brown gravy
- Forms the savoury liquid base that the olives gently simmer in, carrying flavour into the sauce.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury gravy and balances its heaviness.
The step that matters
Soaking the blanched olives. Soaking removes excess salt from the olives. Timing depends on saltiness, so the cook should taste them; too little soaking leaves the sauce overly salty, while too long can wash out flavour.
“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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