MY FIRST ENCOUNTER with some meat wrapped around a filling was my dear old mum’s Beef Olives: bashed-out collops of beef topside with a filling made of onion, garlic, breadcrumbs and herbs. Held together with a toothpick, they were browned in a pan with butter before gravy was added.
Called ‘olives’ for their shape, they are probably another anglicisation of a foreign high point in cookery: the Italian involtini. Someone