Recipes from our Olive Friends

California RECIPES

from Chef Marvin Martin 

“I use olive oil throughout the meal – from aperitif to digestif – as a delicious condiment or key ingredient in cooking, baking, dressing and finishing.”

Orange Olive Oil Brownies with sea salt

Ingredients

·       ¼ cup EVOO or your favorite flavored olive oil - blood orange flavored EVOO is especially good.

·       8 oz Valrhona 70% cacao bittersweet chocolate, chunked

·       ¾ cup super fine sugar

·       2 large eggs

·       ¼ cup flour

·       ½ teaspoon kosher salt

·       Maldon’s salt crystals to garnish

Process

Melt the chocolate and olive oil  in a double boiler.  Remove from heat and stir in the sugar, when cool, whisk in the eggs one at a time.  Add flour, kosher salt and pour the batter into an 8x8 buttered and floured pan (we used silicon mini muffin tins.)  Sprinkle the top with salt crystals and bake 350^oF for 30 min (17 minutes for mini muffins.) 

 Olive Oil Ice Cream

Ingredients

480 ml (2 cups) half & half

240 ml (1 cup) heavy cream

85 g (1/3 cup) sugar

5 egg yolks

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

15 ml (6 tablespoons) EVOO (citrus oils are delicious too!)

1 basket fresh strawberries

8 5 g (3 oz) bittersweet chocolate, melted

Process

·      In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together until they are light and frothy. Put aside.

·      In a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream, half & half and split vanilla bean to a boil, then remove from heat. Slowly beat this hot cream mixture into the yolk-sugar mixture, a little at a time. When fully blended to a custard, remove the vanilla bean.

·      Stir the olive oil into your warm custard. Then cover the bowl with saran and place bowl in refrigerator to chill thoroughly. (overnight is preferable)

·      Using an ice cream freezer machine, freeze the cold custard according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

·      Serve the finished ice cream topped with quartered fresh strawberries, a little melted chocolate and a few drops of olive oil.

SOUTH AFRICAN recipes

from Portion 36

Arend and Birgitta Hofmeyr own an idyllic olive grove with stunning views to the east near Stellenbosch.  Each and every tree has been hand planted and hand pruned with great attention to the soil, the radiance, and retired engineer Arend takes great pride in documenting and detailing the growth and production of his grove.  Birgitta is a full partner who is out with Arend in the groves but when she isn't helping manage the groves, she cooks.  She is a master chef and we were lucky enough to be treated to several of her creations at meals that lasted for hours and hours as the sun dipped below the horizon.  Here are a few of her creations.

Portion 36 Delicata Lace Cookies

 

This is a favourite cookie to accompany our table grapes when in season - the south African Hanepoot and the American Catawba. Add a scoop of home made Kalamata ice cream and you have a olive and grape festival on you plate.

This is my version of Lace Cookies, using olive oil instead of butter and maple sugar and reducing the amount refined sugar.

The first time I had Lace Cookies was in a small café in Sweden where I stopped on my way to ski in the mountains. The baker had made a roll of is cookie and it was divine. I tried to get him to share his recipe but he refused. I then decided to make my own recipe because this is really a treat everyone should have the opportunity to try.

I use our Portion 36 Delicata olive oil. It is oil rich in fruit aromas and with some pepperiness but very little bitterness. Birgitta Hofmeyr Silén

Here is the recipe:

100gr Portion 36 Delicata Olive oil
100 ml sugar
150 ml oats
175 ml flour
0.5 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons maple syrup

Mix all ingredients in a bowl.

Use a teaspoon or tablespoon to portion the doe onto a baking tray (covered with a baking sheet).

Teaspoon makes approx 43 small cookies. Tablespoon makes approx 14 big cookies.
The cookies will become double size once baked so make sure there is enough space between.

Bake in 200 degrees C for 5-8 minutes until the cookies have some colour.

Leave on tray to cool.

Portion 36 Butternut soup with Olive salsa (4 persons)

 Butternut Soup:

-       1-2 butternut(s)
-       300 ml vegetable stock
-       300 ml cream
-       Portion 36 Coratina olive oil
-       Fresh rosemary
-       Fresh oregano
-       Fresh thyme
-       2 bay leaves
-       Salt and pepper

Peel the butternut and cut in approx. 2x2 cm pieces. Sprinkle with Coratina olive oil.
Roast in oven for 1 hour at 170 degrees.
Heat the stock in a saucepan and add the butternut pieces.
Season with rosemary, thyme, oregano and bay leaves.
Let the soup simmer for about an hour.
Mix until smooth with a hand mixer or blender.
Squeeze the though a sieve.
Pour back in the saucepan and add cream.
Season with salt and pepper. 

 Kalmata Olive Salsa:
-       10 – 15 Portion 36 Natural Kalamata olives in brine (do not use olives in vinegar).
-       Handful of Fresh Parsley
-       One lemon (taste the lemon juice to see how sharp its acidic is, will guide you to how much olive oil you will add).
-       Portion 36 Delicata or Favolosa olive oil
-       Salt and pepper

Pit the olives and chuck coarsely.
Squeeze the lemon and add the juice, a little at the time. Tastes to ensure it doesn´t overpower the natural olive flavour. Add 1 -2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Taste. If the salsa is too acidic from the lemon, add more olive oil
Mince the parsley and add.
Season with salt and pepper.
Add a tablespoon or two to garnish the hot butternut soup.

The butternut needs to be spiced up a bit, it is in itself a bit sweet and the texture makes it very smooth. I use the Coratina because its pepperiness gives the soup a little but not sharp bite.

The salsa on the other hand is quite bitter from the natural olive and the lemon juice can be quite sharp. To keep the best of those flavours but settle them a bit closer to the Butternut soup, I use my most fruity olive oils, Delicata or Favolosa.
 

from John Scrimgeour’s Snoek Braai (barbecue)

 While in South Africa, one of our gastronomic highlights was a simple barbecue dinner we had al fresco at Buffet Table Olives Farm in Paarl.  John Scrimgeour prepares this feast once a year to end a several hour practicum for students from the Horticultural Department at Stellenbosch University.  After a day of touring the groves and the curing sheds, and talking about pruning, irrigation, harvesting and the production of table olives, John treats the students, teachers and guests from the US to this time honored South African tradition of a braii featuring a native South African fish called a Snoek (most similar to a pike).

Snoek braai recipe by Jan Braai http://www.capetownmagazine.com/snoek-recipe

A truly Capetonian fish-braai-recipe

What is truly South African? A braai! What is a truly Capetonian braai? A snoek braai.   Jan Braai, the man behind National Braai Day, celebrated on Heritage Day, September 24th, shares with us his snoek braai recipe.

What is snoek? 
It is one of the Western Cape’s most popular exports, growing up to 200 cm in size. Snoek forms schools near the bottom or midwater, and prefers water between 13° and 18°C. Although it's a treat to buy this fish fresh, snoek freezes well and is available all year round. Snoek can be baked, poached, fried or smoked, but the traditional way to serve it is grilled over the coals with boiled sweet potatoes. 



Ingredients

•   1 fresh snoek

•   Olive oil

•   Salt

•   Pepper

•   150 ml apricot jam

•   100 ml olive oil

•   Juice of 1 lemon

•   4 chopped garlic cloves

Method



1. When you buy your snoek, ask for it to be cleaned and for the head and tail to be cut off.



2. When starting the actual snoek braai process at home, wash the snoek under cold running water.



3. Now the snoek needs to be dried. This can be done in one of three ways:

• By hanging it in a cool area with a draft blowing over it. Hanging up a snoek is not always easy if you don’t live in a fisherman’s village on the West Coast so an easy way of hanging the snoek to dry is by already putting it in the grid that you will be braaing it in, and hanging the grid on a hook in a cool place with a slight draft, for example under a tree;
• By salting the snoek with coarse sea salt that will absorb all the water;
• By blotting it with paper kitchen towels.
• Whichever of these methods you use do make sure that flies cannot make a pre-emptive strike and that your snoek has some defense system against aerial attacks.

4. Using a small pot on the fire, or on a stove, lightly fry the chopped garlic in olive oil. Then add the apricot jam and lemon juice. Heat and stir until everything is melted and mixed.

5. If you salted the snoek in step 3, you now have to shake off all the course sea salt. Most of the big visible pieces need to be shaken off as a tooth can be broken on them. Obviously some of the salt would have transferred onto the snoek so keep this in mind when adding extra salt in one of the next steps. This 'pre-salting' of snoek with coarse sea salt is loved by some and hated by others. You need to test whether it works for you.

6. A snoek should be braaied 'open'. Smear the skin side of the snoek with olive oil so that it does not stick to the grid and now place in the grid, skin side down. There are two ways:

•   Straight onto the grid. Coals will need to be slightly gentler as the skin may burn easier. More heat goes straight into the fish as it will not be deflected by the foil. You definitely need to pay more attention and make sure you don’t burn the fish. The skin side of the fish will end up slightly crisper.

•   Foil on grid and fish on foil. Coals can be hotter as the foil protects the fish from getting burned. Another advantage of doing it on foil is that you can fold up the sides of the foil, which saves any basting and sauce that runs off the fish. The fish will then partly 'boil' in the sauce (a good thing). Fish braaied on foil is also easier to lift completely onto a serving tray still on the foil.

7. Grind salt and pepper onto the flesh side of the snoek and lightly pat it onto the meat.

8. Braai time: Whether you are using foil or whether the skin side went straight onto the grid, a snoek should be braaied for about 15 minutes in total. This time can slightly deviate depending on heat of coals, height of grid and size of snoek. The skin side of the snoek will be down for about 80% of the total braai time. You can test whether the snoek is ready by inserting a fork in the thickest part and slightly turning the fork. If the flesh flakes, the snoek is ready.

•   When braaing with foil I would braai 10 minutes skin side down, three minutes flesh side down (and during this time remove the foil from the skin side) and then a final two minutes skin side down to brown the skin.

•   When braaing without foil I would go 12 minutes on skin side and then turn and give three minutes on flesh side to brown it. There is a far greater risk of burning the snoek here, so you may also want to turn it more often. If you do, then you need to baste it after each turn, so make sure you have enough basting sauce by adding the white wine, or simply increasing all the ingredients of the basting sauce.

9. Basting the snoek with olive oil: The basting should happen during the time that the flesh side is up. Use a brush or simply drip it onto the fish with a spoon. You can baste as often as you wish until all the basting is used.


Additional snoek braai advice and tips

•   There is a constant risk that the fish will stick to the grid, so gently shake whichever side of the grid is on top at any stage of the braai to loosen it from the meat.

•   Serve the snoek skin side down, flesh side up.

•   It can be dished using a spatula. Break rather than cut through the snoek (as you would for example do with a pizza) as cutting through the snoek would also cut the bones into smaller parts, which can get stuck in your throat. Normal uncut snoek fish bones are quite large and you will easily spot them.

•   Snoek is best served with a side of soetpatats, which when translated into English are sweet, sweet-potatoes.

Turkey

All of our cooking in Turkey was inspired by Olga Irez's Istanbul Table Cooking blog.  I tried very hard to take an "at-home" course with Olga, but was never successful.  While the recipes may not seem to FEATURE olive oil, nearly every dish in Turkey was either made with olive oil, or olive oil is drizzled over the top, sometimes with some lemon or mint as garnish.  Soups (Çorba) are a national obsession and consumed before lunch or breakfast.

Fantastic Winter Red Lentil Soup (Ezogelin Çorbası)

 This Turkish “stone soup” is the nation’s favorite. The legend has is that a newly wed (gelin) Ezo had nothing at hand to prepare a meal, and she came up with this red lentil soup. Its ingredient list is literally the essential Turkish pantry.

Source: Adapted from The Sultan’s Kitchen by Özcan Ozan

Prep Time: 5 Min
Cook Time: 45 Min
Total time: 50 Min

Serves: 6

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced 
• 1 tbsp high quality tomato paste
• 1 tbsp red bell pepper paste (can omit)
• 1 small tomato peeled and finely chopped
• 8 tbsp red lentils, thoroughly washed
• 2 tbsp short-grain rice
• 9 cups boiling water
  
• 2.5 tbsp fine bulgur
• 1 tbsp salt
• ¹⁄₂ tsp dried mint
• ¹⁄₂ tsp red pepper flakes
• EVOO for serving
• fresh parsley for serving
• lemon wedges for serving

Directions

In a large cooking pot heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat. Cook the onion and garlic for 3-5 minutes, or until it becomes softening. Stir in the tomato and peppers pastes and then chopped tomato; let cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the lentils and rice and then pour the boiling water. Bring the soup to a boil and lower the heat to a minimum. Simmer covered for about 30 minutes, or until the lentils fall apart. After about 20 minutes check the soup to make sure lentils do not stick to the bottom of the saucepan.
As the lentils are cooked, add the fine bulgur and salt. Cook for another 10 minutes stirring occasionally: you can use a sturdy whisk for stirring at this point to help the lentils break and make soup creamier. Taste for salt and adjust, if needed. Finally, crush the dry mint and red pepper flakes in the soup, cover and let sit for 10-15 minutes before serving. Serve with a sprinkling of a buttery EVOO and sprinkle the fresh parsley over every bowl.  Add lemon wedges on the side.