Nothing to do with the olives that grow on trees these form the base of a braised meat dish popular in Scotland since the 1600’s. They are thin beef steaks, wrapped around a filling of stuffing or sausage meat. At The Buffalo Farm we make lots of different flavour varieties to try.

Ingredients

2oz (60g) plain flour seasoned with salt and pepper

15fl oz (3/4 pint) stock, preferably beef

3 onions finely sliced

Preheat oven to 325F/160c/GM3

Method

Dust the olives with a little of the flour and then brown in a flame proof casserole dish. Remove the olives from the pan and set aside.

Take the casserole dish off the heat and stir the remaining flour into the meat juices and then add the stock bit by bit to ensure the flour paste is well mixed in without lumps, until it looks like rather thick gravy (which is what it is!). Place the browned olives back in the dish, cover with a layer of chopped onions and cook, covered, for 1 ½ hours.

The beef olives are also a great dish for the slow cooker if you have one.  Follow the recipe as above, browning the olives and making the gravy as above but then pour the gravy into your slow cooker and then layer the beef olives and onions in. Cook on low for 6-7 hours or on high for 3-4 hours.

Serving suggestion:

Serve with a potato dish of your choice, mashed works well and vegetable sides.

You can also add chopped carrots into the casserole dish, along with the beef olives.

Since you’re going to have the oven on for a long time why not make use of it and do a slow cooked potato dish to go with it like boulangere potatoes?

A simple version is to peel and slice your potatoes about as thick as a £1 coin. Layer into an oven proof dish, layering in fried onion and/or garlic if you wish, the odd knob of butter is nice too. Pour over enough hot stock to just cover the potatoes and cook in the oven for at 1 ½ hours covered with tin foil for the first 45 minutes. If near the end of the cooking the stock level is still at the top then scoop some stock out and return to the oven for 10 minutes to brown the top of the potatoes.