My mother is a great baker. Growing up we feasted on savory pies made with buttery crusts and onions or cheese. Now that I’m in the olive oil business, my colleagues and I are always on the lookout for baking recipes that use extra virgin olive oil instead of butter. So we did a double-take when we came across a recipe featuring a savory tart with an EVOO and almond crust. The tart has a filling of seasonal summer vegetables. It brings back memories for me.

The tart crust is made from ground almonds, EVOO, an egg, and flour. The vegetable filling features red peppers, zucchini, eggplant and summer squash.

The almond tart with summer vegetables recipe comes from our friends at the Almond Board of California.

It’s straight-forward. The ground almonds, EVOO, egg, salt and pepper are combined and then pressed into a prepared 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. The crust is baked in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven until golden brown, about 20 to 25 minutes.

To make the filling, the vegetables are sliced and then broiled.  The cooled vegetables are combined with milk, three eggs, minced fresh basil, minced fresh marjoram, salt and pepper. The vegetable filling is placed in the tart crust. The tart is baked in a 375 degree F. oven until the filling sets, about 25 to 35 minutes.

I’m betting my Mom wouldn’t even know the butter was missing.

Bon appétit,

Claude S. Weiller
Vice President of Sales & Marketing
California Olive Ranch

Chef friends we work with suggested we write more about frying foods in extra virgin olive oil. So we’ll talk about frying crab. But first we’ll talk about  what it means when a good EVOO begins to smoke. It’s important to note that unless your oil is above 400 degrees Fahrenheit, that smoke you’re seeing is not the EVOO breaking down, according to experts.

“It’s the olive particles (in the oil) you see burning,” says Greg Strickland, executive chef for Vi, the upscale senior living center chain formerly known as Classic Residence by Hyatt. Strickland heads the kitchen at the Vi in Highlands Ranch, Colo.

While we take steps to remove the olive particles before we bottle our EVOO, there may be a small amount left. Those fruit particles – similar to pulp in orange juice – can really enhance the taste and flavor of the EVOO. But over time the fruit particles will eventually ferment.

Extra virgin olive oil, Strickland notes, “actually takes a very high heat.”

The “smoke point” at which a good extra virgin olive oil begins to break down is about 410 degrees Fahrenheit, making it suitable for sautéing, roasting, and frying.

Chemistry plays a role here.

EVOO is high in healthful monounsaturated fats. Chemically speaking, these are fats that have one double-bonded carbon in the molecule. By contrast, polyunsaturated fats — found in sunflower, corn, soybean, and flaxseed oils — have more than one double-bonded carbon. That makes these oils more prone to breakdown, according to experts.

“Olive oil is quite stable compared to other oils,” says Walter Willett, chair of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Strickland is a big fan of using extra virgin olive oil in his cooking. “Almost all of our shallow frying and sautéing is with extra virgin olive oil,” says Strickland.

When we asked him for a recipe that involves frying, Strickland shared one for shallow fried soft-shelled crab. He accompanies the crab with a spicy sweet pepper purée on the side. The dish is finished with a citrus vinaigrette.

To begin, soak the crab in buttermilk for an hour and then dredge it in seasoned flour. Experts say the buttermilk helps makes the crab plump when cooked.

To fry the crab, heat a third of a cup of EVOO to 325 degrees F in a frying pan. (That’s well below the 410 degree F smoke point.) Carefully place the crab in the pan and shake the pan gently to prevent the crab from sticking. Fry for 2 minutes or until the crab begins to crisp, and then turn. Fry a minute longer and remove from the EVOO, which can be reused or strained and stored in the refrigerator for later use.

Bon appétit,

Claude S. Weiller
Vice President of Sales & Marketing
California Olive Ranch

We’ve been capitalizing on the summer harvest by grilling lots of vegetables. It’s a favorite way to prepare eggplant, fennel, summer squash, mushrooms and other vegetables. The Tunisians, it turns out, like grilled vegetables, too.

Mediterranean food guru Nancy Harmon Jenkins gave us this recipe for a famous Tunisian grilled vegetable salad known as mechouia. The dish often is eaten as a first course.

This dish, from Nancy’s book The Essential Mediterranean (HarperCollins Publishers, 2003), includes sweet peppers as well as tomatoes, green chili peppers, and onions. The vegetables are basically grilled, sliced, and mixed together. (Some recipes call for the vegetables to be puréed.)

The vegetables are dressed with a citrus dressing made from extra virgin olive oil and fresh lemon juice.

Nancy gives you the option of garnishing the dish with salted capers, chopped hard-cooked eggs, oil-packed tuna, preserved lemon peel, or olives.

To begin, grill the sweet and hot peppers together on the grill, peel them, and slice them lengthwise.  The tomatoes are blackened, halved, peeled, and cut into strips and added to the peppers. Similarly, the onions are blackened, peeled, sliced, and added to the other vegetables.

Chopped parsley is combined with the vegetables.  Finish with the citrus dressing.

You can serve the mechouia as is, or with the optional garnishes. “Although it may be served immediately, this dish is really better if it can be set aside for several hours to let the flavors meld and develop before it is served,” Nancy says.

Bon appétit,

Claude S. Weiller
Vice President of Sales & Marketing
California Olive Ranch

Salad bars have become a nutritional disaster over the past half century. The concept was introduced in 1959, in Philadelphia. The idea was a good one: Get diners to eat more vegetables. But what’s actually happened since then is that diners often pile vast portions of unrelated items on their plates. The salad bar has morphed into an excuse for overeating.

Our friends Rafi Taherian and Joyce Goldstein recently set out to reinvent the salad bar. Yale University was the subject of their experiment. Rafi is the executive director of Yale Dinning. Joyce, an author and food-industry consultant, teamed with Rafi to perform a radical overhaul of the salad bars scattered around the Yale campus. Their goal: create a limited number of healthy, delicious salads for the students in the format of a salad bar.

The first thing they did was to slash the number of choices students had. “We ended up with four items. We had 22 to 23 items,” Rafi said. He was speaking last month to a packed room of university food service directors and chefs.  Rafi and Joyce gave their presentation at the National Association of College & University Food Services’ annual conference in San Jose.

The two began working on the overhaul earlier this year. They didn’t want to cut corners on cost, opting to use high-quality ingredients. The salad dressings, for example, would be made from scratch using good extra virgin olive oil and vinegar. No bottled dressings allowed.

Joyce, who’s written an entire book on salads entitled Mediterranean Fresh (W.W. Norton & Co., 2008), developed four different salads, focusing on grains, beans and roasted vegetables. Two of the choices: cannellini bean salad with sun-dried tomato vinaigrette, and Tuscan sweet pepper and potato salad with a garlic and basil dressing. (Both are pictured above. You can see food-service recipes for both dishes here.)

To see if students would take to the idea, Rafi and Joyce performed two test runs of the new salad bar offerings last spring. Rafi admitted he was “more scared than everybody else that day. We were going to change 50 years of culture, 50 years of paradigm.”

The more than 20 items on the Yale salad bars were gone. The new vegetable salads took their place. Rafi and Joyce held their breaths … and then let out a huge sigh of relief.

“The students came over later and said thank you,” said Joyce. “We didn’t see wasted food. They just ate it.”

Added Rafi: “Overall, this has been a very good experience.”

Yale students coming to school for the fall semester will have the opportunity to try the new salad bar.

A quick note: After I returned from the NACUFS conference I read an interesting article in The Washington Post about how Uncle Sam is trying to improve the quality of food offered in federal employee cafeterias. For good ideas, the Feds should look at what Rafi and Joyce have done at Yale.

Bon appétit,

Claude S. Weiller
Vice President of Sales & Marketing
California Olive Ranch

Joyce Goldstein puts it bluntly: Salads don’t get the respect they deserve among chefs. A veteran chef and restaurant consultant, Joyce said it’s been her experience that some chefs “have no idea how to construct a great salad.” They typically give the task to the least experienced person in the kitchen, with instructions to “put some greens in a bowl and throw on some gloppy dressing.”

Photo: www.andrebaranowskiphoto.com

And here’s Joyce’s rant about salad bars. “Salad bars have produced even worse results because they put out a range of ingredients that may or may not belong in the same bowl and let the diner pick and choose and then put on a dressing that nine out of 10 times does not go with half of the ingredients in the bowl,” she says.

Joyce — whose straightforward tone is known as “Joycespeak” — has made it her mission to ensure salad gets the respect it deserves. She’s written an excellent book devoted to the topic: Mediterranean Fresh (W.W. Norton & Co., 2008). It shows how to design great salads and how to choose the dressings that best complement them. Joyce brings her passion for Mediterranean cuisine to the effort.

For a dozen years — 1984 to 1996 — she operated the trailblazing Mediterranean restaurant, San Francisco-based Square One. There, she moved beyond the traditional Mediterranean foods that restaurants were serving at the time.

Goldstein and staffers prepared dishes from Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa, in addition to the already popular cuisine from Mediterranean countries such as Italy and France.

There was one particular dish in strong demand during the summer: a Lebanese variation of tabbouleh known as fattoush. Unlike tabbouleh, which uses bulgur, tabbouleh relies on toasted pita bread. “Not just our customers, but our staff, too, would start requesting it in late June,” said Joyce. “I’d say, ‘Please be patient. We have to wait until the tomatoes are perfect—ripe and plump.’”

Like the other salads in the book, the fattoush is easy to prepare. Pita breads are baked in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven until dry. When cooled, the bread is broken into large, bite-sized pieces.

The pita is tossed with diced tomato, cucumber, red onion, green onion, romaine and mint.  You can add purslane, considered a “gourmet weed.” And you can add sumac to the citrus vinaigrette that you make to dress the fattoush. It combines fresh lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil.

“While adding more substantial ingredients might not be authentic, you can extend this salad by adding strips of cooked chicken or lamb, or even a few shrimp if you want to turn it into a full meal,” says Joyce.

Bon appétit,

Claude S. Weiller
Vice President of Sales & Marketing
California Olive Ranch

A guest post by my colleague Roger Fillion about his summer trip to Italy. Claude S. Weiller

Italian winemaker Gregory Perrucci’s lifted his eyebrows and shook his head. “You added potatoes when you made fava bean purée?” he asked incredulously. “You don’t use potatoes!”

I’d stumbled on an emotional topic for those steeped in the ways of Puglia, the region located in the “heel” of Italy’s boot.

A  chef from Puglia had taught me to use potatoes in fava bean purée, a traditional dish from this southern Italian region. The signature dish is made using dried fava beans which are boiled and then either mashed, put through a food mill, or cooked until they dissolve into the consistency of clotted cream. Some cooks add a peeled, sliced potato to the water along with the fava beans. Extra virgin olive oil is added to finish the dish.

“But Mino uses potatoes,” I explained to Gregory, referring to Domenico Maggi, a culinary instructor in the town of Bari. I’d seen Maggi, or “Mino,” prepare a fava bean purée during a cooking demonstration in the Napa Valley. He added potatoes and puréed the whole lot.

Not Gregory.

The conversation turned to fava bean  purée while my wife, two children and I were having lunch  with Gregory at a fabulous seaside eatery on the picturesque coast of the Ionian Sea. A renown winemaker in nearby Manduria, he helped put Puglia’s primitivo grape on the world wine map. We were his guests at the restaurant and enjoying  his wines while sampling raw squid, octopus “meat” balls, fish soup, and more.

When the conversation turned to fava bean purée,  Gregory pulled out his cell phone and punched in a number.

“Mino,” he said into the phone. “Are you sitting down? It’s Gregory Perrucci. I understand you use potatoes in your fava bean purée. How can you? You should never use potatoes, only fava beans.”

A friendly argument ensued and Gregory handed me the phone. Mino, whom I’d met in California, said people in parts of northern Puglia do use potatoes. Besides, it was how his mother had made fava bean purée. He said Gregory should stick to what he knows best.

“You make the wine. I make the recipes,” he said, referring to Gregory.

It turns out these two aren’t the only people who have this argument. Mediterranean food expert Nancy Harmon Jenkins notes a recipe in Puglia can change from village to village and household to household.

“While some cooks insist that the only way to make a purée of dried fava beans is with a cooked potato mixed in to give it smoothness, others raise their eyebrows in shocked consternation at the very thought,” she writes in her excellent book, Flavors Of Puglia (Broadway Books, 1997).

So we decided to perform our own test. We made Nancy’s recipe for fava bean purée, which doesn’t include potatoes. We accompanied it with boiled broccoli rabe. The purée, pictured above, was delicious with a unique flavor. The potato version, also excellent, tastes more like the most flavorful mashed potatoes I’d ever eaten.

Which did we prefer? Let’s just say we don’t want to start any new arguments.

Buon appetito,

Roger Fillion
California Olive Ranch

This month we’re focusing on the cuisine of the Mediterranean in our eNewsletter and blogs. It tastes great, for starters. And there’s an added bonus: Plenty of scientific research since the mid-20 century has repeatedly suggested that eating a Mediterranean diet can be good for your heart, your brain, and your overall well being. To help us showcase the cuisine we consulted authorities on the region, including Nancy Harmon Jenkins.

Nancy, the author of several fine cookbooks, told us olive oil is “fundamental” to Mediterranean cooking. “It’s a diet based primarily on vegetables, fruit, legumes and whole grains,” says Nancy. “Olive oil is the principal fat.”

One recipe she gave us is a summer stew of vegetables. It comes from Nancy’s book, The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook (Bantam Books, 2009).

Nancy calls this stew “my own basic take on something you might find just about anywhere in the Mediterranean.” She says it would make an excellent main course for vegetarians.

“Non-vegetarians could add a little meat: some chopped prosciutto or jamon serrano, for instance, to add flavor,” she adds. “Or you could even sear off some chunks of sausage or lamb, brown them well and stir them into the stew toward the end.”

Nancy also says you can substitute a variety of seasonal vegetables available at the farmer’s market, including shell beans, okra and summer squashes. A heavy terra-cotta braising dish is traditional for preparing this dish.

Onions and garlic first are stewed in extra virgin olive oil until they are “meltingly soft.” Potatoes, green beans, sweet peppers, zucchini and tomatoes are added to the pot, along with fresh thyme, salt and pepper. The vegetables are stewed over a low heat for about 45 minutes.

“Check the liquid occasionally,” advises Nancy. “There should be plenty, but if necessary add up to 1/4 cup boiling water.” The vegetables are done when they are “meltingly tender.”

Bon appétit,

Claude S. Weiller
Vice President of Sales & Marketing
California Olive Ranch

Jeffrey Hamelman is a baker’s baker, particularly when it comes to bread. His credentials are impressive. Hamelman is director of the King Arthur Bakery at King Arthur Flour. He’s also a teacher in the company’s baking education center. Hamelman is one of a limited number of Certified Master Bakers in the United States, and he’s taught at culinary schools around the globe. As if that isn’t enough, Hamelman has written a terrific and authoritative book on bread: Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes (John Wiley & Sons, 2004).

We recently made his corn bread from the book and achieved excellent results. It’s not the flat bread you might eat at a barbecue. Rather, it’s a loaf that uses fine cornmeal in addition to bread flour and extra virgin olive oil.

Hamelman notes that corn has been a “staple grain” among the native peoples of the Americas for thousands of years and has been popular throughout Europe for the past 500 years.

“It is no wonder that it found its way into bread making; during times of wheat shortages many different grains were used to extend precious wheat flour and fill the bellies of the laboring peasants,” Hamelman writes in Bread.

The corn bread itself has a golden crumb color, thanks to the cornmeal. Baking with extra virgin olive oil tenderizes the bread and help keeps the loaves moist — a good thing if you don’t eat them immediately and need to store them.

You’ll need two days to make the bread. You make a pre-ferment, or poolish, 12 to 16 hours before you prepare the final dough. The poolish — bread flour, water and yeast — is added to the final dough along with more bread flour, cornmeal, water, yeast and three tablespoons of EVOO. We used our Arbequina.

Hamelman first soaks the cornmeal for 15 minutes in the water. That softens the cornmeal and improves the dough’s mixing and handling quality. You then let the dough ferment for 1-1/2 hours in a covered container, taking it out once after 45 minutes to fold it.

The recipe featured here provides for two loaves. Hamelman’s book, however, also gives the proportions for making 22 loaves. Once the loaves are shaped they undergo a final fermentation for 1 to 1-1/4 hours, before going into a 460 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 40 minutes.

We found the hardest thing about this bread was not eating it too soon once it came out of the oven. Let it cool fully before slicing.

We’ve sent a photograph of our loaf to the YeastSpotting section of the great baking blog, Wild Yeast. It’s through YeastSpotting we got the idea to make Hamelman’s corn bread after seeing a beautiful photo of the bread there.

Bon appétit,

Claude S. Weiller
Vice President of Sales & Marketing
California Olive Ranch

The word gazpacho makes me think of a cold, fresh tomato soup. But our friend John Ash has opened our eyes to another form of gazpacho — a flavorful salad that would make for a great alfresco dinner this time of year on the patio or deck.Called pipirrana, this Spanish dish pairs well with many ingredients, including dry-cured ham or tuna. The above photo gives you an idea of the possibilities — though it isn’t the actual dish prepared from John’s recipe.

John, a highly regarded California chef and culinary instructor, gave us his version of pipirrana when we asked if he had any tomatoes recipes to share.

The recipe calls for some ingredients you see in a typical gazpacho, namely ripe tomatoes and vinegar.

But John’s pipirrana has a number of ingredients you probably won’t find in many gazpachos: hard-boiled eggs, a charred poblano pepper, and Serrano ham.

To make the salad, soak a piece of crustless baguette in water for about a minute and then squeeze it dry. Mash a couple of cloves of garlic in a mortar and pestle along with some salt. Using the mortar and pestle, mash the garlic paste with the bread, the yolks from two hard-boiled eggs, and vinegar until smooth. You can also do the job with a mini food processor.

Add extra virgin olive oil in a slow stream while stirring constantly (or with the motor running) to form a thick sauce. Stir in black pepper and season to taste with salt, if desired.

Spoon the sauce onto 4 chilled salad plates.  Toss the tomatoes, which have been cubed, poblano pepper and ham together and spoon on top of the sauce.  Drizzle the dish with more EVOO and top it with chopped hard-boiled egg whites.

Bon appétit,

Claude S. Weiller
Vice President of Sales & Marketing
California Olive Ranch

Greg Strickland likes recipes that contain “only a few ingredients.” His recipe for broiled tomatoes with goat’s milk feta cheese falls into that category. It has six ingredients, including the salt and pepper. The dish comes together with a generous drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

“The idea is to highlight the tomatoes. The brininess of the feta cheese and the fruitiness of the olive oil do that,” says Strickland, an executive chef for Vi, the upscale senior living center chain formerly known as Classic Residence by Hyatt. Strickland heads the kitchen at the Vi in Highlands Ranch, Colo.

Strickland also seasons the dish with a bit of saba, the cooked grape juice produced from the “must” of wine grapes. “It’s got a certain sweetness to it but it’s almost tart,” says Strickland, who likens saba to balsamic vinegar. “It’s a nice counterpoint.”

This dish can be prepared in minutes. Tomato slices are placed on a heat-proof platter and topped with the feta. The tomatoes and cheese are broiled at high heat for 2 minutes, or until the cheese just begins to brown. The tomatoes and melted cheese are then seasoned with EVOO, Saba, salt and freshly ground pepper.

Strickland suggests serving the dish hot.

Bon appétit,

Claude S. Weiller
Vice President of Sales & Marketing
California Olive Ranch