Hot Olives – A few weeks ago I was on a business trip in the bustling metropolis of Johannesburg, Guateng. The City of Gold has plenty of interesting foodie places well worth seeking out…Some colleagues and I ended up in a very interesting restaurant that serves both gossip and glitter to the well-heeled of Parkhurst and surrounds. We ordered a few small starters to share and one of them was hot olives with baguette. Never in my life would I have thought of heating olives in olive oil – isn’t that kind of like smuggling sand in the desert? Well, just so you know, this little starter tapas was so delicious. Heating the olives gives this stone fruit an undeniably new dimension. Dipping the fresh baked bread into the fragrant hot oil just seems to forge with the olives… leaving a most tantalizing taste….wash this down with some chilled wine and you could swear that you were sipping wines with the gods of ancient Greece!
It is just one of those really simple dishes you can make on the run or when guests come knocking unannounced…simple yet oh so sophisticatedly #hot-and-happening.
Serves: One bowl of tapas
Preparation Time: 5 min
Cooking Time: 7 min
Ingredients
150 ml Virgin olive oil
1t Fresh rosemary (not chopped)
1t Parsley – roughly chopped
2 Red chillies chopped (I like it hot but you can leave the chillie out of the recipe if you are not fond of the fiery stuff)
1 Garlic clove – finely sliced
200g Kalamata olives
1 Spring onion – chop the stalks and leaves
1 Fresh baguette
Method
1. Heat the olive oil, rosemary, chillies, parsely and garlic slowly in a pan for a 5 minutes minutes. Just to infuse the flavours with the oil.
2. Add the olives and heat through for about 2 minutes.
3. Add the spring onion at the end, give it a good stir + serve with baguette.
anél potgieter 