Tapenade Recipe

By CheeseDiva

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (about 3 ounces, 90 gr) stemmed and quartered dried black figs (use dried Black Mission figs, if available)
• 3/4 cups (180 ml) water
• 1 cup (about 150 gr) black olives; Niçoise, Nyons, or Greek, rinsed and pitted
• 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons whole-grain mustard
• 1 small garlic clove, peeled
• 1/2 tablespoon capers, rinsed, drained and squeezed dry
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary or thyme
• 1/2 cup (150 ml) extra-virgin olive oil
• black pepper and salt, if necessary

Details

Servings 1
Adapted from davidlebovitz.com

Preparation

Step 1

Makes about one cup

1. In a medium-sized saucepan, simmer the figs in the water for about 30 minutes, until very tender. Drain, reserving a few tablespoons of the liquid.

, mash the olives with the mustard, garlic, capers, and fresh rosemary or thyme. Pound in the drained figs. Once they are broken up, add in the lemon juice, olive oil and season with salt and pepper, and fig juice, if necessary.

A tip from Carrie is to make this

Must be on the same wave length today, I just sat down with some wonderful green olive tapenade and fresh local goat cheese spread onto a slice of my favorite crusty sesame levain. It’s true, a good barquette of fresh tapenade can’t be beat. At the Uzès market this morning our local olive producer had 3 kinds, black with anchovies, green with basil and garlic (pistou) and another with sundried tomatoes. I absolutely agree, there’s no reason to make your own, leave it to the pros!!

David, I’m not sure this post is safe for work. Holy innuendos Batman! (And don’t act all innocent..) Just make sure there is some of that tapenade left when I come knocking on your door next week.

My husband makes a great tapenade recipe, which I’ve stolen and copied once or twice (we’re a bit territorial about the recipes; I tend to find, then he steals and develops, then I complain when he takes the credit — I’m petty, what can I say?).

But altho’ he can wield a mean pestle, he generally relies on our ancient Osterizer. Recently, though, our chef daughter gave us a fabulous KitchenAid food processor and he’s started to use that for the tapenade. I find the texture too smooth and prefer the less-efficient blender. Now I’m thinking it would be worth trying the mortar-and-pestle version to see if I like that presumably-rougher texture even better. And altho’ I do occasionally buy a good-quality processed version, that fig and olive version looks as if it could be my new favourite (and I really like that yoghurt idea).

btw: Not sure if you’d remember, but I’m the woman who did the keen fan thing and approached you outside the Nimrod as you guided a fortunate group through Paris in early May. My brush with a foodie blog celebrity (and my husband, the tapenade-maker and recipe-stealer, would have been the embarrassed fellow pretending to focus on his

Sara: There were so many opportunities to make Paris Hilton jokes that I didn’t know where to begin. But I decided the poor dear has suffered enough. And to be quite honest, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

Althought I’m a generally adventurous eater, I do find it difficult to deal with my fault as an ill-knowledged olive-eater. That is, I don’t eat olives much. Once in a blue moon, I experience some magical olive and actually like it, but forget or just don’t know what it’s called. What type of olive do you recommend for an amateur like me? I’m hesitant to go to Berkeley Bowl to sample their array of olives, only to be rude and make distasteful faces :P

Any chance you’ll give up your mortar and pestle source in Chinatown (the 13th, I’m assuming)? I’m in the market for a set myself and your post makes it seem all the more urgent. Cheers.

That is, when I make it myself…

Krizia: You’ll note I mentioned several olives that make great tapenade. Best to go somewhere where you can taste them, or buy a few of each and take them home for the tasting. Tiny niçoise olives are perhaps the sweetest, although they’re a chore to pit.

I’m a big cheater and use a food processor. I guess it’s ok since I’m not living in France, right? I try to use the best olives but have been known to use the pitted kind, I admit.

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