great tastes. great stories.
A potato salad with a green olive tapenade made with Zejd’s green cracked souri olives to showcase waxy new potatoes. The new season’s potatoes are a perfect vehicle for absorbing the aromatic flavour of Lebanese green cracked souri olives. A recipe by Claudia Roden from her book Med: A Cookbook makes a crowd pleasing summer dish with some store cupboard essentials.
Tempting as it might be to grab the jar of supermarket pitted olives, it’s the flavour you’ll compromise on. Pitting olives is straightforward: with a flat bladed knife, pressing down on the cracked olive releases the pit and the floral aroma. It doesn’t take long, a pleasurable mindful task rewarding your senses with this unique eastern Mediterranean variety. Besides, the pits are worth keeping, washed and dried in the oven, to keep your BBQ burning!
Roden suggests using a food processor but it’s just as easy to do it on a wooden board. This way you have more control over the texture, achieving a rougher less homogenous finish. We used Cornish new potatoes, which didn’t need peeling, and most won’t. Mixing the tapenade through when warm will allow the flavours to absorb better. A touch of Aleppo pepper, although optional, is a joyful fleck of colour, giving a kick to this summer salad.
serves 4 as a side dish
500g salad potatoes, scrubbed or peeled
70g Zejd green cracked souri olives pitted,
3 anchovy fillets in oil, drained,
1 tbsp capers, squeezed of brine
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 tsp wine vinegar, sherry vinegar or verjus
3 tbsp Zejd’s extra virgin olive oil, plus more for finishing
salt and pepper
15g flat leaf parsley, leaves finely sliced
Aleppo pepper to garnish (optional)
For a summer lunch this goes well with cold meats, smoked mackerel or smoked trout and a crisp green salad.
