Don’t ever toss out your leftover favourite black olive bread.
There’s some fabulous small bakery olive bread to be had, should you choose not to make your own. But only buy it as you intend to use it or freeze it fresh. It doesn’t keep well, particularly in hot humid weather.
Olive bread is wonderful toasted. Or pop it under the broiler briefly to use as the base for tapas.
Some people love to eat the end pieces of any bread; if it’s not for you, find a perfect use for those end pieces.
One of my favourite uses for the end pieces is to let them dry out on the counter overnight covered loosely with a fresh clean tea towel.
Break the crusty dried bread into large chunks. Whir quickly in the food processor until you have loose bread crumbs, not fine crumbs. Again, at this stage you can collect the breadcrumbs in your freezer for use on another day.
One such wonderful use: melt a few tablespoons of butter in a stainless steel skillet.
Sauté a teaspoon of finely sliced garlic on high heat, but be careful not to burn the butter or the garlic. If you do, there is no salvaging it. Toss it in the trash, wash the skillet and start again.
When the garlic is soft and translucent, mash the garlic with a fork. Remove the garlic bits. Save in a waiting saucer.
Add a little more butter to the skillet. Turn the heat to high but watch it carefully so you don’t burn the butter.
When the butter is bubbly and hot, add a cup of the olive bread coarse crumbs. Using an egg-turner type spatula backwards, move the breadcrumbs around in the skillet until they start to get just a little bit crispy, not rock hard.
Add back the mashed garlic to the hot toasty olive breadcrumbs and stir to combine.
You will notice I didn’t add salt. The olive bread has enough salt.
Remove the skillet contents to a waiting warm dish.
Add more butter to the empty hot skillet. Add cooked brussels sprouts that are fork tender. Using the backwards egg turner again, keeping the heat high, move the sprouts around in the hot skillet until they brown, saving the browned stuck-on bits.
Some of the outer leaves will separate; that’s how it should be. Add back to the skillet. The olive breadcrumb mix and stir into the browned sprouts. It looks a little messy. That’s perfect. Remove from heat.
Toast or broil medium thin-sliced olive bread. Drizzle bread with olive oil or a tiny bit of melted butter. Top each slice with a tablespoon of the sprout mixture.
Now for the gourmet topper: add a half teaspoon of homemade plum jam and a couple of twists of fresh peppercorns. Sprinkle with just a few grains of dried Parmesan cheese.
This might sound like an odd mix, but trust me – it’s mega delicious.
Another variable: add thinly sliced white button mushrooms, seared once over lightly in very hot butter and sprinkled with dry thyme, to the brussels sprouts mix.
The brussels sprouts mixture is a fabulous side dish with stovetop sautéed small pork loin. Sliced thinly, serve the pork loin as a tapas, again using the dark olive bread as a base.
The working title for Carolyne’s Gourmet Recipes cookbook is From Lady Ralston’s Kitchen: A Canadian Contessa Cooks. This kitchen-friendly doyenne has been honoured and referred to as the grande dame of executive real estate in her market area during her 35-year career. She taught gourmet cooking in the mid-70s and wrote a weekly newspaper cooking column, long before gourmet was popular as it is today. Her ebook, Gourmet Cooking – at Home with Carolyne is available here for $5.99 US. Email Carolyne. Scroll down to the comments at each recipe column. Carolyne often adds complimentary “From Lady Ralston’s Kitchen” additional recipes in the Recipes for Realtors Comments section at REM.
