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Beef Olives

Beef rolls stuffed with breadcrumbs, herbs, and lemon rind, cooked in brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Beef Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Slice the beef into pieces about ½ inch thick and 4 inches long, then beat them out with a wet rolling pin.

  2. Chop the trimmings finely and place them in a bowl.

Make the filling

  1. Chop the beef suet finely after removing the skin.

  2. Sift the bread crumbs through a wire sieve into a bowl.

  3. Finely chop the parsley, thyme, and marjoram.

  4. Combine the chopped beef, suet, bread crumbs, parsley, thyme, and marjoram in the bowl.

  5. Grate the lemon rind and add it to the mixture along with nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

  6. Beat the egg and mix it into the filling.

Roll and cook

  1. Roll the beef slices around the filling and secure them with string or toothpicks.

  2. Cook in brown sauce or stock for about one 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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  5. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the outer wrapper and provides the main meaty texture and flavour.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich during cooking.
Bread crumbs
Absorbs liquid and gives the filling a light, binding body.
Egg
Binds the filling so it holds together when sliced and served.

The step that matters

Securing the rolls. If the beef rolls are not tightly secured, the filling can leak out during the long simmer in liquid. Rolling the slices snugly and fastening them firmly keeps the filling inside and the rolls intact.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, parsley, thyme, marjoram, lemon, pepper):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, parsley, thyme, marjoram, lemon, pepper. 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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