Green Olive Tapenade
The word “Tapenade” comes from the French Provençal word for “capers,” but the recipe is more predominately olive. Olive spreads date back to the Roman period, but the modern Tapenade originated in Provence, France and quickly spread through the Mediterranean.
A Tapenade is loosely defined as a paste consisting of olives, capers and anchovies made into a chunky spread with olive oil. Tapenades can be made with either green or black olives, or even a combination of both, but the more popular Tapenade is made with Kalamata olives, a Grecian ripe olive.
While that's good, I was served a green olive version, made by my Number One Fan and thought it was sublime. She found the recipe online from the Tasty Kitchen website, but as usual, we've made some refinements to make the dish our own. While this recipe is simple to make, you do need the help of a food processor in order to get the right consistency. Either that or you will chopping for the whole afternoon! In either event, this is far better than the stuff you can buy in a jar from the grocery store, loaded with preservatives and other food manufacturing ingredients you won't find in the real deal.
What can you do with a Tapenade? I like spreading it over brown rice crackers and having as a snack or an appetizer before dinner, but you can serve it on Bruschetta, Melba toast, or crackers of any sort, and it would do well over pasta or as an accompaniment to a salad. You can even use it as a spread in a sandwich. In fact, the famous New Orleans Muffuletta is a sandwich made with cold cuts on Italian bread with an olive salad that resembles Tapenade. It's very versatile.
While the recipe below is made with green olives, you can use strictly black olives or a combination of both. If your grocery store has one of those "olive bars" with different kinds of green and black olives, experiment! Just stay away from the pits.
Green Olive Tapenade
Ingredients
- 2 cups green olive, stuffed with pimentos, drained (like Early California)
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 4 tbsp non-peril capers, drained (like, Goya or Cross & Blackwell)
- whole can of anchovy filets packed in olive oil (like, Reese)
- 5 tbsp sun dried tomatoes, chopped (like, Mezzetta)
- 4 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped (or 2 tbsp dried)
- 5 whole large fresh basil leaves (do not use dried)
- 2 tbsp pickled jalapenos (like, Mezzetta), or one half fresh (seeds and veins removed, finely diced)
- 1 tsp garlic, minced
- juice from one fresh lemon
- 7-8 grinds freshly cracked black pepper
- sea salt to taste
Instructions
- Put all the ingredients except the olive oil and capers into the food processor and pulse until you have the vegetables at a rough, but even consistency.
- Add the capers and pulse once.
- Add the olive oil at the end and pulse twice more to combine. Don't over-process.
- The dish will taste better if you put it in the refrigerator for several hours or longer, allowing the flavors to amalgamate.
Notes
- Don't add any salt until the Tapenade has been fully made. Because of the saltiness of the olives, capers and anchovies, you are not likely to need additional salt. But if you do, lightly salt, then use a rubber spatula to incorporate it into the mix; do not further pulse the food processor.
- You can get away with dried parsley, but not dried basil. You must use fresh.
