How To Make Delicious Beef Olives
Thursday, September 8th, 2011
Before we begin, I should point out that beef olives is a recipe that actually contains no olives at all, so don’t worry if you aren’t fond of the Mediterranean delicacy. What you do need for the first part of this recipe is, 1 shallot, 3 rashers of bacon, four mushrooms, a couple of thyme leaves, a clove of garlic and one tablespoon of olive oil. Take all of these ingredients and dice and crush where appropriate, before placing into a gently heated frying pan with the olive oil and saute off. This will make the basis of the stuffing for your beef olives.
For the next part of the recipe you will need half a kilo of beef (any cut is fine), 1 tablespoon of mustard, a couple of sticks of celery, a couple of carrots, a small glass of red wine (preferably merlot or cabernet sauvignon), a small amount of tomato puree, half a litre of beef stock and another tablespoon of olive oil. Take your beef and portion it out into thin slices then smear with mustard. Then wrap your beef up into parcels before securing with string and place in the oven at 175 Celsius. Next up, take the stuffing you prepared earlier and smother the cuts of beef with it liberally. Take the vegetables and roughly chop them up, before browning lightly in a frying pan together with the beef stock. Pour the vegetables from this pan into the baking tray containing your beef olives and let the vegetables roast gently alongside the beef. This will enhance the flavor of your beef olives significantly and provide a great stock for you to make gravy with to go with your beef olives.
Remember this well; beef olives don’t actually contain any olives. Your dinner guests may be a little disappointed with this (until they taste them!), so offer some delicious Italian olives as an aperitif. After forty minutes of cooking time, remove your beef olives from the oven and allow to rest. Serve with roast potatoes, rich gravy and broccoli florets for a truly sumptuous meal. To add a little extravagance to the whole proceedings, a large glass of cabernet sauvignon should compliment your beef olives very well, enhancing the flavor even more and giving you a great excuse to enjoy a little drink as a reward for your endeavors.
