Broccolo Romanesco and chickpea salad

Broccolo Romanesco is a beautiful vegetable, but if you cannot find it you can substitute here with a cauliflower. Cut the florets and drop them in salted boiling water, then cook them until soft but not mushy. Cool in cold water and drain, then dress with white wine vinegar or white balsamic (about one tbsp). Drain one can of chick peas (keep the chickpea water - aquafaba, to make vegan meringues or other vegan recipes) and add to the Broccolo. Add olive oil (about 2 tbsp) and salt to taste. To finish add some olives (ascolane olives are the best, otherwise used other marinated olives). Mix well and serve at room temperature.

Photo and Recipe by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Picking, treating and preserving olives in brine, and olives marinated in olive oil and herbs

Preserving olives is a rewarding experience. If you don’t have an olive tree you may be able to forage olives from trees in community gardens and in parks.  Usually olives are ready around April-May (in New Zealand).

Pick the olives from the tree (never from the ground) and wash well in cold water. If you prefer sweet-tasting olives you can put them in a bucket of water for up to 40 days, or 20-30 days for very small olives, changing the water every 24 hours; the olives will become brownish in colour, and lose a lot of bitterness. After this period make a brine (recipe follows) and bttle your olives. If you prefer crispy green olives with a peppery taste, just wash them and soak them for a day, then preserve them in brine.

Brine for preserving olives

Before making the brine, be sure to have plenty of glass jars with lids, sterilised and completely dry.

Ingredients

Water

Salt

Prepare 10% salt brine (100 g of salt for every litre of water) by placing in a saucepan the water and salt.  Simmer until the salt is completely dissolved. Once the brine is cold place the olives into clean sterilised jars and cover completely with the brine.

To each jar add one more clove of garlic, a fresh bay leaf, a chilli pepper, or a fresh sprig of thyme.  Seal and put away in a dark place for three months. After this period the olives can be used in cooking or can be marinated with olive oil and your favourite herbs.

If you’d like to keep the olives for longer prepare a new brine with an 8% solution (80 g of salt every for every litre of water) and put the olives into new jars with the fresh brine (discard the old brine). Olives stored this way, and completely covered with brine, will last for years! Don't worry if you see white spots forming at the top of the brine, as this is natural — just remove them every time you open the jar, and always rinse the olives before using. Below is a recipe for marinating your preserved olives with olive oil and herbs, starting with your olives in brine.

  

Olives marinated in olive oil and herbs

I suggest you use a delicate olive oil for this recipe, like an extra virgin olive oil from the supermarket. Expensive olive oil is far too precious to marinate olives, unless you have your own press.

Ingredients

300 g olives in brine (green or dark)

1 sprig fresh thyme

1 sprig fresh oregano

1 sprig fresh rosemary

6 peppercorns

200 ml extra virgin olive oil

Drain the olives well from the brine, and give them a little rinse. Place in a large jar, add the herbs and pepper corns, and cover with the oil. Leave to rest for at least one day, and then serve. Store in a cool place and use within two weeks.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Soaking olives

I like preserving olives, the step I like best is soaking them in water for weeks, with my little boy who reminds me every day to change the water. I would remember anyway (how could I forget when they are in a big laundry bucket on the kitchen floor?), but it is just so nice to hear him say "Mamma, did you change the water today?". He takes his olives very seriously.






This image is for Black and White Wednesday, a weekly blogging event created by Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook and for the coming week hosted by Sihi of Wondering Ladle. The title of the photo is: soaking olives.






I am also adding another photo to today's post, not food, but I photo that I took a few years ago in Modena, my provincial city. And I am thinking of everyone who is suffering in the area because of the earthquakes. 

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Pasta Caponata

The sauce is a bit like a caponata, or at least, the caponata that I make! Eggplants and capsicums are more affordable now, and are among my favourite vegetables:

Ingredients:

1 eggplant,

3 capsicums (red, yellow and green)

1 stalk of celery (optional)

1 garlic clove (peeled)

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (plus some to drizzle)

one 

2 tbsp black olives

a few capers

salt to taste

Cut the eggplant into cubes and sweat with salt for 30 minutes. Rinse well. Cut the capsicums into cubes as big as the eggplant, and the celery cut into thin slices, if using. Place all the veggies plus the garlic into a pot that can be covered with a lid, add the olive oil and sauté for a few minutes, then cover and simmer on low for about an hour, adding a little water from time to time and stirring often. I usually add the olives, capers (rinsed) and salt halfway through the cooking (actually, I add them when I remember...) and cook until the eggplants are mushy and the other vegetables really soft. Cook the pasta al dente (I used rigatoni) and dress with the vegetables, adding a little more olive oil at the end. I love this pasta :-)!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

olive focaccia made while mopping the floors

One of my kids' favourite snack when they get home from school is a nice piece of freshly baked focaccia. I don't usually measure the ingredients, but the flour/water ratio is about 500 g of flour for 300 ml of water, plus a pinch of salt and 2 tsp of dried yeast granules and a pinch of sugar (this yeast dose is good up to 1 kg of flour. I made a dough.

While the dough was rising I cleaned the pantry and found a jar of the olives I marinated last year. They were still good, small (I picked them from a friend's tree) but very tasty.

If you like to know how to preserve your own olives go to the CUISINE ON THE NET section on the sidebar of this blog, and click Preserving Olives.

First I needed to remove the stones, which I did with a knife. At first I did this over the jar, but it was messy and I wasted too much oil, so I drained a few olives (over the jar) little by little and then I cut the flesh off the stones.

I added the olives to the risen dough and mixed.

Then I left the dough to rise for a second time (I cannot give you exact times because I was mopping the house and making this focaccia at the same time... maybe 1 hour the first time and then 45 minutes?

I rolled the dough and resumed mopping (and you can see the mop in the picture!!!!) for other 30 minutes.

Then I made some little 'craters' with my fingers and added some olive oil from the olives' jar. I sprinkled with some rock salt on top.

Baked for about 30 minutes at 200 °C, and when the kids came home they smelled it immediately!!! Yum!!!!

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©