Black olive tapenade is a very easy and quick preparation, with a more or less creamy consistency, depending on taste and needs. It contains no eggs, nor gluten or lactose. It’s a delicious, very flavorful recipe that we can use to create refined and tasty canapés, for appetizers, buffets, or aperitifs. However, its uses do not end here; olive tapenade can also be used as a condiment for pasta, both in winter and summer, to accompany boiled or roasted meat and fish, to fill savory panettones, savory pies, and sandwiches. Once prepared, olive tapenade can be stored in the refrigerator, in a well-sealed glass container, for a few days. This procedure can be used to prepare both black and green olive tapenade.
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very cheap
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 6.35 oz
- Cooking methods: No cooking
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
- 9 oz black olives (or green)
- 1/2 clove garlic
- to taste chopped parsley
- to taste extra virgin olive oil
- 1 chili pepper (optional)
- 2 fillets anchovies in oil
- 5 capers
Tools
- 1 Mortar
Steps
Rinse the capers under running water and remove excess salt. Pat them dry with paper towels.
Pit the olives and place them in a mixer along with the capers, the anchovy fillets well-drained from oil, garlic, and very finely chopped chili pepper and parsley, and blend for a few seconds, pouring the oil slowly (a scant tablespoon should suffice).
You will quickly obtain a soft and very aromatic cream (as shown in the photo below). Do not add salt as the cream will already be quite savory. The olive tapenade is ready to flavor boiled dishes, sandwiches, savory pies, and so on.
Extra Tip. Instead of using the mixer, we can make the olive tapenade with a pestle and decide whether to achieve a real cream (it will take about 5 minutes) or a coarser texture, where you can also feel the pieces of olives (it takes only 2 minutes), as you can see from the cover photo. To facilitate this operation, I put the ingredients in the mortar partly already chopped or coarsely broken up; then, using the oil poured very slowly, I pound until I get the desired consistency or the one I need for a specific preparation.
Bon appetit
