Olive Tapenade

I love to watch cooking shows, I always get ideas that I file away in the back of my brain for use at a later date. Sometimes, on one of the many judged cooking shows, a chef will say he made something in a specific style, and the judges will admonish him, and say that his dish did not fit that particular description, Well, if I was being judged for making a tapenade, the judges would say this is not a true tapenade. However, my olive and pimento tapenade recipe is delicious, served on anything, as an anytime snack or with a glass of wine before a meal.

So, why would the judges admonish me? Why would they say my tapenade is not a tapenade? Well, although a tapenade is an olive based topping or spread, it’s actually the word for caper used in southern France. And there are no capers in my olive and pimento tapenade. The tapenade we know today is actually a relatively modern concoction. In the late 1800’s a southern French chef put together the tapenade using capers, olives and anchovies with herbs and spices. But as with most dishes, it has a much longer history. Capers have been grown around the Mediterranean for millennia. They are mentioned by the Romans, and in old Jewish texts. They were even thought to have aphrodisiac qualities.

There is and old story, that, in that time some capers were shipped in olive oil packed in an amphora (a clay pot the ancient Romans and Greeks used to ship products). When they arrived at their destination the oil had rendered the capers mushy, not wanting the throw out the shipment, the person receiving it decided to add chopped olives and spices, and an early version of the tapenade was born.

But, moving back to my tapenade. It doesn’t have it’s roots in southern France, all the ingredients are available at your local store. Starting with a jar of salad olives with pimentos. Salad olives are the manzanilla variety. These are the type of olive that, because of their size, are best suited for table food. But, can also be used to make olive oil. They can be left whole or pitted, and are often stuffed with pimento. The pimento is a round pepper, that come in sweet and hot variants, the pimento stuffed in the olive is of the sweet variety

Salad olives are available either chopped or whole, and, you can choose which you prefer. Obviously, if they’re whole they need to be chopped. They come in vinegar, that’s the first thing that needs to be cleaned off. I pour the jar into a strainer or sieve and rinse gently under cool water. The reason is, we will be packing them in olive oil, all the vinegar has to be rinsed off. Shake the strainer to remove excess water, then put in a bowl. Now for the garlic, use 3 decent size cloves for each 10 oz. container of salad olives. These have to be cut really fine, not minced or grated, just chopped really fine.

There is a reason for this. When you mince or grate garlic, a lot of the natural oils stay in the mincer or on the grater. We need all those oils in the tapenade, it’ll taste better. And now for the warmth. 1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes per 10 oz. container. Now, this is a variable, all depends on how much warmth you like. But I’ve found the 1/4 teaspoon is a happy balance. All this goes in the bowl and mix well. Now spoon all the ingredients back in the jar they came in. And then add olive oil to cover everything.

There’s a lot of stuff going on in that jar, the olives, pimentos, garlic and red pepper flakes. The flavors need time to permeate around the ingredients. I usually give them a few days to settle. Just leave it on the counter. If you refrigerate the oil will become waxy and thicken, so room temperature is fine. Then, enjoy your olive pimento tapenade, on melba toast, plain chips, anything really. I usually pair with a glass of merlot, but, I pair everything with a glass of merlot.