Olive Tapenade

Heather says:

I don’t do a lot of fancy food here at Home Ec 101, but once in a while, it’s nice to have something in the arsenal for special occasions. Olive tapenade is a condiment from the Mediterranean region, some would say it is specifically from the Provençal area of France and others argue it’s from Spain. Who cares as long as it tastes good, right? If you hate olives of any sort, this tapenade is not for you, just keep browsing. If you want something salty, piquant -ooh vocabulary word- and a little different from the usual fare, give it a try.

If you want to be all perfectionist about it, be my guest and use a chef knife to process (chop into very fine pieces) the ingredients. I’m just not that precise.

What I’m giving here is a bare bones, but still delicious version of olive tapenade. If you enjoy anchovies or roasted red peppers or hate capers add or subtract ingredients until you find the perfect tapenade for you. Just remember if you’re going for an olive tapenade you want the olives to remain the focus, everything else is just a flavor accent, try not to get to carried away with your additions. When I worked for a Spanish restaurant the tapenade was one or most popular tapas. We served it with thinly sliced, toasted baguette. It’s also delicious on fancy crackers as an appetizer or spooned over fish or chicken as part of a main course. Later today I’ll be publishing a recipe for baked cod in which olive tapenade is a star ingredient.

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Olive Tapenade Recipe

Olive Tapenade Ingredients

• 10 – 14oz (1 jar) pitted kalamata olives -always check the olives for pits regardless, sometimes they sneak back in-
• 2 TBSP capers
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 small handful flat leaf parsley -roughly chopped
• 2 clove garlic, roughly chopped
• fresh ground pepper, to taste

Now pay attention, this gets tricky. Place all of your ingredients into a food processor and pulse until as fine as you like it. Some people like a paste, others -like myself- prefer it to still have some texture.

That’s it. Easy peasy, unless you got picky and started processing it with a chef knife. We’ll just be over here enjoying our tapenade until you are through.

Enjoy!

Tagged as: Condiment, Gluten Free, Recipe, Side Items