Sonntag, 30. Juni 2013

Black olive tapanade

About 2 months ago, I asked my husband to go to the Metro by myself, because I had to finish a cake. We were running low on all sorts of necessities. Olives aren't really a necessity, but I asked him to bring a small jar, as I wanted to have some for a salad. Well, he came back with a large bag. Since then it had been sitting in my cupboard, unopened, because I couldn't think of a way to use up all those olives.

Last week, it came to me. Black olive tapanade. I love the stuff as a dip or on top of bruschetta. As the temperature has been slowly climbing, I also thought, some olives would go well with all the mezes we have been eating.

So out came the olives, my food processor and a couple of other ingredients, and we have been eating a lot of this really healthy stuff in the last 2 weeks. I took a jar of it along to a friend's house and it took her all of 5 days to finish it.

My version of black olive tapanade is

  • 2 cups black olives
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons capers
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • generous slugs of very good quality virgin olive oil
  • 2 teaspoon lemon juice
  • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, salt to taste
  • Put all of the ingredients into the food processor and pulse. Do not pulse too finely, it should still have some texture and not become a cream
     
    Spread some of this stuff on slices of baguette, top with grated parmesan and broil. You can watch them being inhaled, as soon as they come to the table, or just use instead of butter, as my friend has apparently been doing I couldn't believe, how fast she went through the jar.
     

    I cannot believe, how easy it is to make and am pretty angry at myself, for having waited so long to try this out, it's really expensive out here. It tastes better than the storebought stuff,  plus I know exactly what is in it. The only downside is, we're going on holiday soon and I have loads of tapanade. I've filled some in a jar for now, and stuck the larger part into small ziplock bags and froze them. Just be sure to always top up the tapanade left in the jar, so it won't go moldy on you and keep it in the fridge. I hope, that freezing won't harm the rest of the tapanade, if it does, I'll come back to let you know.