This week, my foodspiration has been the olive.
Wait, wait, before you call me a pretentious wanker I must impart some wisdom.
If you don’t like olives, hear me out, I’m willing to believe it’s because you’ve only ever had them out of a jar (which turns them in to rubbery, bitter globules of hideousness) or a little marinated tub of pre-pitted olives.
You see with the olive, the longer they’ve been off the tree and pitted, the more bitter they taste. Pick a queen olive from a tree in Greece and you’ll be amazed how creamy and ripe they are. It’s like eating a chunk of brie.
Always, always buy your olives unpitted and pit them yourself. If you don’t like them too strong, start off with green ones and educate your palate. By the time you’re salivating over the black kamalata (my favourite) you’ll wonder where they’ve been all your life.
As beautiful as they are naked, or clothed in a slip of oil and herbs, they really are a treat to cook with too.
Step one: The Salad
I have very, very strong feelings about potato salad. The first time I had it as a child, it contained bland, chilled cubes of potato, drenched with slimy mayonnaise and limp chives. I will remember the disappointment to my dying day and if someone offers me supermarket-bought potato salad it’s all I can do to keep the disgust off my face. The best potatoes to use for cold salads are little waxy darlings like Exquisa, Charlotte or Maris Peer (Jersey potatoes are better steamed, buttered and hot), and combined with a white chocolate mayonnaise (trust me!) and kamalata olives, this is one potato salad that you’ll never forget.
Step two: The indulgent snack
Narrowing this down to just one was pure torture, but I hope you’ll agree that the tapenade is easily one of the five best things to ever happen to bread. I think my combination of sun dried tomatoes and kamalata olives makes such a rich, savoury combination and it can be knocked together in seconds with the use of a blender or nifty knife skills.
Step three: The Soup
When I’ve cooked olives in soup before, it has always been a delicate “white” soup – cannellini beans, green Queen olives and a hint of leek. Kamalata olives mean big flavour and therefore, this tomato and olive soup packs more wallop than Brad Pitt in Snatch. (Moment to perve over THAT please!)
Step four: The side dish
Given that I am utterly, hopelessly obsessed with mashed potato, I was tempted to suggest black olive potato wedges instead, but since I’ve recommended my black olive pesto in the pasta section, I can recommend this mash with my conscience clear. Oh olive mash, you silky, savoury goddess, you. I don’t even need to describe you because the words “olive mash” cause a spontaneous pant-wetting that speaks for itself.
Step five: The Pasta
My long-suffering husband hates olives, or at least he claimed to before I hit him with my black olive pesto. I smothered it on brussell sprouts at Christmas and I slathered it on his chicken sandwiches. By the time I stirred it into some linguine with some roast baby aubergines; his protests were forever silenced.
Step six: The pudding
Truth be told, this is going through as a pudding on a technicality only. After all, you wouldn’t have a cheese scone for pudding, cheese is not pudding. Except for cheesecake. And yet a cheesecake is not savoury (not unless, like me you tried to invent the Mini Cheddar cheesecake during a rainy afternoon which I quickly blocked out of my memory. *shudder*) Olive scones are buttery, flaky and ravishingly tasty.
So there you have it. How to be innovative with an olive in six stages! If you want to try more olive recipes, go to Everything Goes With Toast.