I’m having a foodie month and sharing recipes and food to do with November. Towards the end of Modern Practical Cookery, published in 1934, there is a section on monthly menus for small dinner parties. After oysters – allow six oysters per person and serve in the deep halves of their shells, arrange them on a plate with chipped ice and garnish with lemon… accompanied by brown bread-and-butter, cut as thin as a wafer and formed into rolls – the guests are treated to beef olives, served with mashed potatoes and peas:
Beef olives
1½ buttock steak (cut thinly) – I think we would call this rump! – cut into pieces 4×3 inches, then beaten flat with a cutlet bat
½ gill tomato purée
butter or dripping
1¼ pints stock
2½ flat tbsp plain flour
seasoning
stuffing:-
1 level tsp mixed herbs, finely chopped
2½ level dsp chopped parsley, finely chopped
3 oz breadcrumbs
1 egg
1½ oz suet, finely chopped
½ lemon zest and juice
seasoning
- mix all the dry stuffing ingredients thoroughly
- mix in the egg and lemon juice
- spread the beef slices with stuffing, roll up and tie but not too tightly (you don’t need to use all the stuffing)
- roll in seasoned flour and fry in hot fat to seal the outside, then place in a casserole
- pour off excess fat from pan and stir in remaining flour
- cook for a moment then stir in the stock, bring to the boil and add the purée, season to taste
- strain gravy over the olives, cove with lid and simmer for about an hour
- make forcemeat balls from the left-over stuffing, dipping in egg and flour and frying
- to serve, untie the olives, place on some of the mashed potato, pour round some gravy and garnish with the forcemeat balls
I’ve only ever had been olives once, when I was a teenager, and was so disappointed there were no actual olives!
Lois Elsden 