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Beef Olives

Beef olives are small, fried, then simmered beef and pork fat balls seasoned with sage, savory, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Beef Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the olives

  1. Trim edges and fat from the beef and cut into strips measuring 3 by 4 inches.

  2. Sprinkle beef strips with salt and pepper.

  3. Spread with a dressing made from chopped trimmings and cracker crumbs, seasoned with salt, pepper, and sage.

  4. Roll up the beef strips and tie with twine.

  5. Roll in flour.

Brown and simmer

  1. Fry the pork until brown, then remove it from the pan.

  2. Fry the beef olives in the remaining fat until brown.

  3. Place the olives in a tightly covered pan.

  4. Add 1 tablespoon of flour to the remaining fat in the pan.

  5. Add the olives and 1½ pints of boiling water.

  6. Cover and simmer or steam for 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Pour gravy over the olives on a platter and remove strings 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 + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sage + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the wrapped outer layer that holds the dressing and cooks tender during slow simmering.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb juices in the dressing, keeping the filling moist and binding it together.
Fat pork
Adds fat for frying the olives, giving browning and rich flavor to the pan and gravy.
Flour
Coats the olives and thickens the pan liquid into gravy.

The step that matters

Covered simmering for 2 hours. Long, gentle moist heat breaks down the connective tissue in the beef so it becomes tender. A boil or rapid simmer can toughen the meat and dry the filling, so keep the liquid at a gentle simmer under a tight cover.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, pork, flour. 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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