Recipe: Tapenade
Tapenade meets anchoiade: the perfect culinary coupling.
I am seriously crazy about all things salty and briny. But when it comes to tapenade I typically find most recipes bland and oily. On the other hand, one of my favorite Mediterranean chunky spreads is a dish called anchoiade, which combines anchovies, lots of garlic, almonds and olive oil with just a trace of lemon juice. The end result is not for the faint of heart or tender of taste bud. So one day when I was feeling emboldened in the kitchen I decided to combine flavorful Kalamata olives with all these other ingredients I love plus a few extras that produced a jaw-dropping spread that is so big on the palate it will put hair on your chest, as my Grandpa Rennon Preston (R.I.P.) was fond of saying when something tasted off the charts. The upshot is a spicy, salty, briny, nutty amalgamation for which I’m forever grateful that I colored outside the lines. Use this on top of warm crostini for your next dinner party and enjoy!
Lisa Fielding’s Tapenade
2 cups pitted Kalamatas
1 tin anchovy fillets, lightly rinsed and drained
8 large cloves of garlic
¼ cup toasted walnuts or slivered almonds
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
Juice of one half lemon
½ tsp. red chili flakes
Handful of Italian parsley, stem free
In the bowl of a food processor, dump garlic cloves and process until minced. Add anchovies and parsley. Pulse several times until a paste has formed. Add Kalamatas and nuts. Pulse until roughly chopped. Add olive oil, lemon juice and chili flakes and process until combined. Don’t process until smooth — texture is everything with this spread.
Spoon into a bowl and allow to sit for at least one hour before serving to allow ingredients to meld.
