21 recipes that use black olives, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Olive salsa dip, takes 15 minutes. It is most often cooked with garlic, egg and onion.
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A chunky Mediterranean salsa of chopped black olives, tomato, pepper and spring onions with chives, basil, garlic, red wine vinegar and olive oil. Serve it cold or at room temperature with corn chips or toasted bread.
A rich, tangy paste of sun-dried tomatoes, black olives and toasted pecans, sharpened with red wine vinegar and herbs. Toss it through hot pasta for an instant supper, spread it on toast or crackers, or serve it as a dip.
Big pieces of sweet red pepper and fennel tossed with lemon, black pepper and olive oil and roasted until soft and just starting to brown, then topped with black olives, toasted pine nuts and fresh herbs. It works as a side or a light starter, warm or cold. The vegetables can also be roasted on the barbecue jiko.
Causa limeña is Lima's cold potato terrine: yellow potatoes mashed with lime, oil and ají amarillo, pressed into layers and filled. In Lima it is a lunchtime starter sold in every menú and at every family party, often with tuna or chicken; this vegetarian causa is filled with ripe avocado and a creamy salad of corn, peas and carrot. The potato should be smooth, sunny yellow, tangy and gently hot, and the whole thing is served cold in neat slices. Make it in the morning for dinner, or the day before for a party. Chef's tip: mash the potatoes while warm but add the lime only once they have cooled; lime on hot potato turns the mash grey and gluey.
Papa a la huancaína is named after Huancayo in Peru's central Andes, but it is eaten everywhere, from Lima's set-lunch counters to Sunday family tables. Thick slices of cold boiled potato are blanketed in huancaína sauce, a silky, mildly hot sauce of ají amarillo, fresh cheese and evaporated milk, then finished with boiled egg and black olives. It is served cold as a starter, and the sauce is also the favourite dip for boiled corn and fried yuca. Use a queso fresco made with vegetarian rennet if you want it fully vegetarian (or a mild feta rinsed of salt). Chef's tip: fry the chillies, onion and garlic before blending; this takes off their raw edge and gives the sauce its rounded, sweet heat.
Solterito, the 'little bachelor', is a cold salad from Arequipa in southern Peru, so called because it was simple enough for a single man to make. Broad beans, sweet corn, fresh cheese, tomato and red onion are tossed with black olives, parsley and a little rocoto chilli in an oil and vinegar dressing. It is eaten with the spicy dishes of Arequipa's picanterías, or on its own as a light lunch. Rocoto is a fat, fiery red chilli; a red pepper with a little habanero gives a similar crunch and heat. Use queso fresco made with vegetarian rennet. Chef's tip: peel the broad beans after blanching; the pale skins are tough and the bright green beans inside make the salad sweet and tender.
Rocoto relleno is the pride of Arequipa's picanterías: fiery rocoto peppers stuffed with a sweet-savoury filling, topped with cheese and baked over sliced potato in an egg and milk custard. The traditional filling is minced beef; this vegetarian version uses mushrooms and lentils fried with ají panca, cumin, peanuts, raisins, olives and boiled egg, which gives the same rich, spiced, slightly sweet bite. The peppers are first blanched several times in fresh water with sugar and vinegar to tame their heat, which is the real skill of the dish. If you can't find rocotos, use small red bell peppers and add a little habanero to the filling. Chef's tip: taste a sliver of rocoto after the second blanching; stop when it is hot but pleasant, and blanch once more if it still burns.
Panzanella is how Tuscans eat old bread in summer: hard, unsalted loaf soaked in water, squeezed and crumbled with juicy tomatoes, cucumber, red onion and basil, then dressed with vinegar and plenty of olive oil. In Florence and the Maremma it is a cool lunch for the hottest days, and every family argues about cucumber. Make it 30 minutes before eating so the bread drinks the tomato juice but keeps some bite. Chef's tip: salt the tomatoes first and let them weep in a bowl; that juice becomes the dressing.
Antalya does piyaz its own way. Elsewhere in Turkey the bean salad is dressed with oil and vinegar, but on the Mediterranean coast the beans are folded through a pale, nutty sauce of tahini, lemon and vinegar, then crowned with sumac onions, tomato and parsley. Lunch canteens in the old town serve it on the side of almost everything, and at home it is a filling lunch with bread or a cool side on a hot evening. Tinned beans make it a fifteen-minute dish. Chef's tip: when the lemon hits the tahini it will seize into a stiff, grainy paste; don't panic, just keep beating in cold water a spoonful at a time and it turns silky.
Labneh is the thick, tangy strained yogurt that Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian families spread on a plate every morning, swirl with olive oil and scatter with za'atar, the wild-thyme, sumac and toasted sesame mix of the Levant. It sits beside olives, cucumber, tomato and warm khubz at breakfast in Beirut and on the mezze table at night, and the firmer version is rolled into small balls and kept in jars of olive oil for weeks. Here salted yogurt hangs for a full day until it is as thick as cream cheese, then goes out two ways: spread in a dish, and rolled into balls. A common mistake is using low-fat or set yogurt with gelatine; it gives a thin, chalky labneh, so choose full-fat plain yogurt with only milk and cultures. Chef's tip: stir the salt in before straining, not after, because it draws out more whey and seasons the yogurt all the way through.
Tzatziki is on every Greek table in summer: scooped up with bread at the start of a taverna meal, spooned over fried courgettes and chips, and tucked into pitta wraps. It is cool, thick and sharp with raw garlic, made with strained yogurt so it holds its shape on a spoon. Grated cucumber gives it crunch, a little vinegar lifts it, and olive oil makes it rich. It also goes well with gemista, fritters and grilled halloumi. Chef's tip: salt the grated cucumber and squeeze it dry; leaving the water in is the common mistake that turns tzatziki runny within an hour.
Slata mechouia means 'grilled salad', and in Tunisia it opens almost every family meal and Ramadan iftar: peppers, tomatoes, onion and garlic charred over coals until blackened, then peeled and chopped into a smoky relish with olive oil, caraway and coriander seed. It is scooped up with bread or served next to grilled food and couscous. A tuna and egg topping is common in restaurants; this version keeps it to vegetables and olives. Chef's tip: let the vegetables steam in a covered bowl after charring; the skins then slip off in seconds.
In Chile pastel de choclo is the taste of January and February, when choclo (big-kernelled starchy corn) is in every market from Santiago to Talca and families bake it in individual clay dishes called pailas. Underneath is the pino, a slow-cooked onion filling with olives, raisins and hard-boiled egg; on top, fresh corn blended with basil and a little milk, scattered with sugar so it browns into a crackly crust. This version makes the pino with mushrooms instead of beef. Chef's tip: cook the corn topping on the hob until it thickens like polenta before it goes in the oven, or it will stay runny.
Lima's old criollo kitchens turned leftover hens into this golden, velvety stew, and it still turns up at family lunches, office canteens and menú del día stalls all over the capital. Poached chicken is pulled into threads and folded into a sauce thickened with milk-soaked bread, ground walnuts and parmesan, coloured by ají amarillo, Peru's fruity yellow chilli. It is served over white rice with boiled potatoes, a halved egg and a black olive. Chef's tip: keep the poaching broth; loosening the sauce with it instead of more milk gives a deeper, more chickeny flavour.
In Iquitos, Tarapoto and the river towns of Peru's Amazon, juanes are steamed by the hundred for the feast of San Juan on 24 June, when families picnic by the rivers to mark the start of the dry season. Each parcel hides a piece of chicken, half a boiled egg and a black olive inside rice seasoned with turmeric, cumin and the herb sacha culantro, all wrapped in broad bijao leaves that perfume the rice. Banana leaves are the easiest swap outside the jungle. Chef's tip: let the rice cool before you wrap it; warm rice is too soft to shape and the parcels lose their round shape.
Safi and Essaouira are sardine country, and cooks along that Atlantic coast have always made the most of the cheap, silvery catch by turning it into kefta. Fresh fillets are chopped with chermoula herbs and spices into tender, rich fish balls, then simmered in a peppery tomato sauce until they soak up its flavour. They taste nothing like tinned fish: soft, savoury, a little lemony. Eat them from the pan with bread, or as part of a Friday spread of salads. Chef's tip: chill the mixture for 15 minutes before rolling; oily sardines firm up in the cold and the balls hold together in the sauce.
In the old town of Nice, pissaladière is sold by the square from bakeries and market stalls, a lunchtime slice or something to nibble with a drink before dinner. A thin bread dough is spread thickly with onions cooked down for almost an hour until soft and sweet, then crossed with salted anchovies and dotted with small black Niçoise olives. It is just as good at room temperature as warm. Chef's tip: cook the onions low and slow without letting them brown; they should be pale gold and jammy, not caramelised.
In Nice the salad is a summer lunch eaten on shady terraces near the Cours Saleya market, and locals argue about what belongs in it. This is the generous everyday version found across the Riviera: ripe tomatoes, little potatoes, crisp green beans, soft-boiled eggs, good tuna and black olives, dressed with a sharp mustard vinaigrette. Use tuna in olive oil from a jar or tin, or a fresh tuna steak seared rare to medium. Chef's tip: dress the warm potatoes and beans first so they soak up the vinaigrette, then build the rest of the salad around them.
Lisbon's Bairro Alto taverns claim this dish, said to be named after a tasca owner called Brás, and it is still a weeknight favourite in homes all over the city. Flaked salt cod is softened with slowly cooked onion, tossed with a heap of fine straw-cut fried potatoes, then bound at the last second with beaten egg so everything stays creamy and loose. Black olives and parsley go on top. A green salad is all it needs. Chef's tip: take the pan off the heat the moment you add the eggs; they should finish cooking from the warmth of the potatoes, like a soft scramble.
Fricassé are the small, soft fried rolls sold from glass-fronted counters in Tunis and the coastal towns, split while still warm and filled to order with tuna, boiled egg, olives, boiled potato, mechouia salad and a smear of harissa. They are an afternoon snack, a beach lunch and a Ramadan favourite. The mistake is frying the dough when the oil is too cool, which makes it greasy and heavy; keep the oil at 170 °C. Chef's tip: give the shaped rolls a full second rise so they puff and stay light inside.
Salteñas are the pastries all of La Paz queues for between 10 and noon, when they come out of the oven: a slightly sweet, golden crust wrapped round a soupy filling of beef, potato, peas, olive and egg in a gelatine-set broth seasoned with cumin and ají. The trick, and the fun, is to bite off the top and sip the juice without spilling. The mistake is filling the pastry with warm stew: the filling must be chilled overnight until it sets firm, or it leaks. Chef's tip: hold a salteña upright, nibble off one corner and drink the juice before eating the rest.
