Beef Olive

A popular favourite in Scotland, beef olive is rather mysteriously named, since it contains no olives. The essence of the dish is thinly cut beef which is wrapped around a filling, usually of some kind of sausage meat enriched with herbs. So it has been suggested that the association is with olives, which are often stuffed with pimiento once the olive stone is removed. So in a sense a beef olive is beef stuffed with sausage. 

The filling can be either beef or pork sausage meat, mixed with soya flour, rice flour, oat flakes, or something else which isn't wheat. The proportions should be about 50 per cent meat, 30 per cent flour, and about 20 per cent finely chopped red onion, enriched with lots of herbs. If the stuffing is pork, one of the best choices of herb to use is sage. The choice is yours. Add a little salt. 

Place the thin cut beef on a chopping board, dust the inside with a little flour and a small amount sunflower oil,  add the stuffing, rolled, and wrap it in the beef. Press the olive a little (with the overlap of beef on the bottom) to ensure that it will stay in its wrapping in the casserole dish (a bed of vegetables helps secure this). 

Place Beef Olives in the dish (with the lid on, otherwise the olives may dry out) and add  half an inch of water. Add seasonal vegetables (in this case curly kale and slices of red onion) and dress with some salt and pepper. Cook for approximately 50 minutes at 180 deg. C.  

Beef Olives

Raw Beef Olives on a bed of Curly Kale and Red Onion