INGREDIENTS

• 400 g olives
• 2 cloves garlic
• 70 g anchovy fillets
• 100 g capers
• 100 ml extra virgin olive oil
• freshly ground black pepper

STEP-BY-STEP COOKING RECIPE

Place the capers and olives in a sieve and dry. Peel and crush the garlic.

Remove the pits from the olives by lightly crushing the olives, dried from brine, with the flat side of the blade of a heavy knife. Once the olive cracks, the pit can be easily removed with your fingers.

Place the anchovies, garlic, capers and olives in a food processor and process to a smooth paste. You can do this the old fashioned way using a mortar and pestle.

Now gradually add olive oil, continuing to stir until the whole mass acquires the consistency of cream. Season with pepper to taste.

Transfer the tapenade to a bowl, cover with cling film and refrigerate for 1 hour. Serve cold.

Helpful advice

Tapenade can be stored in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. You can serve it with fresh bread, toast or crackers, or with fresh crispy vegetables (cucumbers, radishes, stalked celery, green salad leaves), or even with potatoes. And wash it down with rose Provençal wine. To give the tapenade an extra fresh note, you can add some basil leaves to it. And if your imagination really runs wild, throw in a couple more soft, sun-dried tomatoes. It will turn out especially beautiful if you make two versions of tapenade: from olives and from olives - and serve them together.

Note to the hostess

By the way Tapenade is a typically Provencal dish, because it is in this French province that the largest number of olive trees grow. Although it is also prepared in Catalonia, which is close to Provence. The classic tapenade is made from black olives, but you can use green olives if you wish. Thus, tapenade becomes a type of olive oil that can be spread on bread. Don't be surprised that we sometimes call olives black olives, and the ordinary olives we are used to - green. After all, in any other language except Russian, the word “olive” does not exist, and olives are simply divided into black and green. We suggest you make tapenade from pitted olives - they are much tastier than “pitted” ones, and the process of removing the pits is quick and painless.

Refinement, sophistication, originality - these are the excellent epithets that gourmets use to describe French cuisine. As for Tapenade, two succinct definitions will do: simple and very tasty. Connoisseurs of the French language will be confused by the name of the sauce, because in translation “tapéno” means “capers”, and there are not so many of them in the sauce; the basis of the dish is olives.

From the point of view of Russian cuisine, tapenade is a banal caviar made from olives. However, hidden in this Mediterranean banality is a delightful melody of taste. No wonder Tapenada has become one of the most famous and beloved sauces in Provence. In this region of France, a true, original sauce is prepared - because only here olives grow, giving it a unique flavor bouquet.

The basic recipe for Tapenade contains olives, anchovies, capers, all other ingredients are a creative improvisation of the person preparing the dish.

Classic Tapenade

Classics are the basis for experimentation, but without trying them, you won’t understand what you would like to add or remove. The basic version of the sauce includes:

• anchovies (fillet in oil) – 10 pieces;
• capers – 50 grams;
• pitted olives – 200 grams;
• garlic – 6 cloves;
• fresh thyme – 1 teaspoon;
• fresh savory – 1 teaspoon;
• juice from half a lemon;
• black pepper (freshly ground) to taste;
• olive oil – 2-3 tablespoons.

Cooking process:

1. Dry the capers and anchovy fillets with a paper towel. Cut in small pieces.
2. Peel the garlic cloves and chop them finely.
3. Chop the thyme and savory.
4. Place anchovies, capers, olives, thyme and savory in a blender bowl. Add lemon juice to them and grind until smooth, trying to make the mass look like black caviar.
5. Place the sauce from the blender into a deep bowl and sprinkle with pepper. Then add olive oil, which will bind all the ingredients so that they are convenient to spread on bread.

The finished tapenade can be transferred to a jar and stored in the refrigerator for several days. Many people believe that the cooled and steeped sauce acquires a special, multifaceted taste.

Russian version of Tapenade

The classic sauce recipe uses anchovies, but in some regions of Russia they are difficult to find. Housewives involuntarily think about how to replace this sauce ingredient. Use regular anchovy, because it differs from anchovy only in name; itapenada cooked with anchovy is no different in taste from its Provençal original. For olive caviar we will need:

• pitted olives (canned) – 170 grams;
• anchovies or anchovy - 10 fish;
• capers – 2 tablespoons;
• garlic – 2 cloves;
• juice from 1/3 lemon;
• ground black pepper to taste;
• olive oil (“green”) – 3 tablespoons.

Preparation:

1. Cut the fish into fillets. We remove bones, fins, heads. Take a small amount of strong tea leaves and soak the fish in it for 10-15 minutes.
2. Drain the brine from the capers and olives.
3. Place the soaked anchovy, olives and capers in a blender bowl and grind until it becomes caviar. During the grinding process, add olive oil and pepper in small portions.
4. Place the prepared olive caviar in a deep bowl, stir again, and the dish is ready.

Tapenada is served on crispy toast or simply with black bread, but it is also good in combination with fried eggplant.

Spicy tapenade

For lovers of aromas that excite the sense of smell, there is a spicy version of the sauce. In it, the taste of olives is diluted with fresh notes of pungently smelling greens and there is no fish at all. For the dish we will need:

• black olives - contents of one jar (about 200 grams);
• garlic – 3 cloves;
• celery stalks – 50 grams;
• parsley - half a bunch;
• black balsamic vinegar - 1.5 tablespoons;
• olive oil – 50 ml;
• chili sauce to taste and optional;
• sugar to taste.

Preparation:

1. Drain the marinade from the olives and place the fruits in a blender bowl.
2. Peel the garlic, chop finely and add to the olives.
3. Finely chop the parsley and celery and add to the blender.
4. Pour in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and sprinkle the ingredients with sugar. Let's start chopping.
5. As a result, we should get the consistency of squash caviar, but not pate.

Serve the spicy French sauce on toasted bread, garnishing the sandwich with fresh cucumber slices. The sauce is also good as an independent snack or seasoning for other dishes.

Professionals and connoisseurs of French cuisine know that to obtain a delicious combination of flavors, it is imperative to add capers grown and produced in Toulon, and take olives from Nice. Only such a union creates the true taste of the famous sauce.

By the way, in some areas of Provence, housewives do not use lemon juice, but add brandy to the dish. With such a serious ingredient, the sea tenderness leaves it, but the hot note of the raging ocean appears.

Plain olive tapena serves as a strong taste stimulant, so it is enough to spread it on a flatbread so that the entire dinner is eaten without leaving a trace, and the guests are satisfied. However, the sauce is also perfect for seasoning meat and fish dishes; it complements the taste of grilled dishes especially well.

Tapenade (or tapenade) is a French dish. Essentially, tapenade is a paste made from olives, black olives, and anchovies. Capers are an essential component of this thick sauce. In addition, it is seasoned with salt, pepper, lemon juice, garlic and vegetable oil is added to create an oily thick texture.

Tapenade can be prepared either entirely from olives or entirely from black olives. But first, be sure to prepare it from their mixture, because this duet complements each other perfectly: olives will make the taste very piquant, and olives will enrich it and add richness. In addition, olives are more oily in structure, and therefore the tapenade with them will turn out smoother.

If we talk about capers, then their taste is the leading one in tapenade, so choose capers to your taste - you should like them.

Anchovies act as a flavor enhancer. If you cannot find anchovy fillets in oil, replace them with 5-6 salted sprat, previously cleaned and washed. You can also use dried anchovies crushed in a coffee grinder - 2-3 pieces will be enough. You won’t even notice the presence of fish in the finished tapenade, but the taste will only benefit from its addition.

Ingredients

• 75 grams pitted olives
• 75 grams pitted olives
• 40 grams of capers
• 10 small anchovy fillets in oil
• 4-5 tbsp. tablespoons vegetable oil
• juice of half a lemon
• 2 cloves garlic
• salt, pepper - to taste

How to make tapenade

Making tapenade is an incredibly quick process. First, place the olives, olives and capers into the bowl of a food processor or blender. All this needs to be crushed.

Then add anchovies and peeled garlic.

Pour in lemon juice.

Then add vegetable oil. Extra virgin olive oil is best. But it can be replaced with any refined one.

Grind the tapenade until the pieces are very small. Everything should practically turn into a paste. During chopping, the olives will also release oil, which will further bind all the components.

Thick olive sauce is a remarkable dish of Provençal cuisine, widely used for making sandwiches, toast, as a dip for vegetables or even as a filling for stuffing. Having tried sandwiches with olive paste for the first time, I was very pleased and interested - the tapenade recipe turned out to be simple, although some ingredients are quite rare, but you can buy them.

Olive tapenade paste (sometimes tapenade) is prepared without heat treatment from olives, capers, anchovy fillets, with the addition of garlic, spices, and olive oil. They write that this olive snack owes its name to the Provençal name for capers - tapena. The first mention of the recipe dates back to the end of the 19th century, although olive paste is characteristic of almost all Mediterranean cuisines.

In old recipes, the first place was capers - the young buds of flowers of a shrub that grows throughout southern Europe. Typically, capers are salted or pickled. In modern cooking, olives come first and the term olive paste is often used. And recipes are often simplified and adapted to specific conditions and the availability of ingredients.

Olive tapenade can be made from black and green fruits or a mixture of both. Natural black olives make up the majority of the sauce and are mixed with the usual and typical appetizer ingredients. Green olives, in addition to the usual ingredients, can be mixed with pine nuts, ground almonds, and even the presence of capers is not always necessary.

An important ingredient in tapenade sauce is anchovies, salted or preserved in oil. Anchovy meat is very fatty and only a few fillets are enough for the sauce so that their taste is clearly felt.

The fruits of the olive tree are olives or olives, one of the oldest products grown by people. Fruits and olive (Provençal) oil are eaten. Bones are used as fuel, olive oil is used in cosmetology and, it seems, everywhere else. Essentially, tapenade is a concentrated snack made from olives - oil and fruits, with the addition of capers, spices, etc.

Tapenade. Step by step recipe

Ingredients (6-8 servings)

• Black olives 200 g
• Anchovy fillets 2-3 pcs
• Capers 1 tbsp. l.
• Garlic 1 clove
• Fresh hot pepper 0.5 pcs
• Lemon juice to taste
• Olive oil to taste
• Salt spices
• Bread, greens, olives, cream cheese, hot peppers for filing

1. If desired, you can make tapenade sauce from any olives. It is important that they are natural, without preservatives and dyes. Few people thought that the uniform, dense black color of olives is almost certainly due to the so-called “oxidation” of green olives in caustic soda and iron gluconate - removing bitterness and coloring. Nowadays you can buy good olives by weight. “Black” olives will be brown, spotted, brown, purple, but not black.

   Olives with pits

2. Anchovy fillets, although rare, are quite possible to buy. Anchovies are often replaced with herring fish - salted sprat, herring and other types. This is not entirely correct, but it at least allows you to use a similar product for the recipe. Salted capers are a common product, sold in small jars. You should not take very large capers - they are coarser and more difficult to chop.

   Anchovy fillets, lemon, capers, pepper and garlic

3. Olives must be pitted. It is not difficult. In most cases, it is enough to press the olive fruit well so that the pit literally jumps out.
   If you press the olive and “roll” it with your palm on the table, the pit is perfectly separated from the pulp. In the most difficult case, the pulp can simply be cut off from the pit with a knife. Place the olive pulp into a small bowl.

   Remove pits from olives

4. As I already said, the olive tapenade recipe involves carefully chopping all the ingredients. To do this, you can use a stationary or immersion blender. Or, if you have experience, chop all the components with a knife. But using a blender is both faster and more convenient. Without haste, grind the olive pulp with a blender at low speed - carefully, splashes may fly.
5. Meanwhile, remove a few anchovy fillets and finely chop them with a knife. Rinse the capers thoroughly to remove brine and dry. It is better to rinse several times, squeezing out the liquid. Peel a clove of garlic and a small hot pepper, or half a pepper, if desired. Chop garlic and pepper. Add the anchovy fillets, capers, garlic and pepper to the olives.

   Add to olives and chop capers, anchovies, garlic and pepper

6. Continue grinding everything together until smooth. Season the tapenade sauce with salt to taste, but not too much. Add 1-2 tbsp. l. lemon juice - to taste, mix and add 1-2 tsp. the best olive oil and mix well again. If desired, you can add more olive oil, but the olive paste should not flow freely from the container. The consistency of the sauce should be close to.

   

Tapenade sauce is a thick olive paste often prepared in Provence. This is another masterpiece of French cuisine that has no analogues. Despite its uniqueness, tapenade sauce is prepared according to different recipes. Most often it includes olives or black olives, anchovies, capers, olive oil and lemon juice. The composition may include other ingredients, such as tuna, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes. At first glance, it may seem that the main component of tapenade paste is olives, since they are used most often for its preparation, giving it a rich color and buttery taste. However, in fact, it is not they that make the sauce unique, but the capers, after which it got its name (the name of capers in the Provençal dialect is similar to the name of the sauce). So don’t be surprised if you come across a recipe that doesn’t include the use of olives – they can sometimes be replaced with other ingredients.

Cooking features

The recipe for tapenade sauce, which looks like black vegetable caviar, is quite simple. The only difficulty is getting the right ingredients. However, if you know that anchovies are exactly like the well-known and cheap anchovy to all of us, there will be no problems. Capers can be purchased in most large supermarkets, although they are not cheap. Advice from experienced chefs will also help you get an impeccable result.

• Traditionally, all the ingredients that make up the sauce are ground in a mortar, which is why it resembles a paste. However, the taste of the sauce will not change if the products are chopped in a blender. And the appearance of the sauce will only benefit from this.
• If you want a thicker sauce, finely chop the ingredients with a knife. To obtain a thinner consistency, add more oil by mixing it with lemon juice.
• The sauce will be even tastier if you add herbs and spices to it. You can add them according to your taste, but you need to know when to stop so that the seasonings do not overwhelm the soft and buttery taste of the sauce itself.
• In Provence, tapenade sauce is made from home-grown salted olives. However, not all of our compatriots have such reserves. For this reason, canned olives are most often used. Other products can also be used in canned form.

Tapenade sauce can be served with salads, fish and meat dishes, or spread on sandwiches. The French also stuff fish with it - it turns out very tasty.

Classic tapenade sauce recipe

• pitted olives – 0.25 kg;
• garlic – 2 cloves;
• anchovy fillet – 50 g;
• capers – 60 g;
• lemon juice – 5 ml;
• olive oil – 60 ml;
• ground black pepper - a pinch.

Cooking method:

• Peel the garlic cloves.
• Separate the anchovy fillets (can be replaced with salted sprat).
• Place olives, anchovies, garlic and capers in a blender bowl. Pour olive oil in there.
• Grind the products thoroughly with a blender and place them in a bowl.
• Add pepper and lemon juice, stir thoroughly.

Video recipe for the occasion:

The tapenade sauce can be refrigerated for up to three days and used as needed. It is often served as a side dish with hard-boiled eggs or simply spread on toasted bread. So, having prepared this sauce, you won’t have to worry about what to make for breakfast.

Tapenade sauce with canned tuna

• pitted olives – 100 g;
• pitted olives – 0.2 kg;
• garlic – 2 cloves;
• anchovy fillet – 50 g;
• capers – 60 g;
• canned tuna – 150 g;
• olive oil – 100 ml;
• lemon juice – 20 ml;
• fresh basil – 25 g.

Cooking method:

• Mash the canned tuna with a fork and place in a blender bowl.
• Add olives and black olives to the tuna, as well as anchovy fillets and capers.
• Grind the products with a blender.
• Without removing the mixture from the blender, add the basil leaves, pour in the oil and juice.
• Beat everything with a blender to obtain a homogeneous consistency.

The sauce is aromatic, tender and satisfying. It can be used to set a buffet table. It makes delicious toast, you can stuff eggs or tomatoes with it, or you can just fill tartlets with it.

Sun-dried tomato tapenade sauce

• sun-dried tomatoes – 100 g;
• black olives or pitted olives – 100 g;
• capers – 40 g;
• anchovy fillet – 40 g;
• garlic – 1 clove;
• olive oil – 40 ml;
• lemon juice – 5 ml;
• dried basil, ground black pepper - to taste.

Cooking method:

• In the bowl of a blender, puree the anchovies, capers and olives together.
• Pour lemon juice and oil into them, add a clove of garlic, cut into several pieces, and mix everything again, while chopping with a blender.
• Transfer the paste from the blender to a bowl, add basil and pepper.
• Finely chop the sun-dried tomatoes with a knife and mix them with the sauce.

Tapenade sauce with sun-dried tomatoes has a piquant taste and looks appetizing. It can be served with vegetable salad as a sauce or as an independent snack. It goes well with fish and meat, boiled eggs. It would also be good as a spread for sandwiches.

Provencal tapenade sauce is unusual, appetizing and very tasty. In cooking, it is used not only as a sauce, but also as an appetizer or pate. For example, sandwiches are often made with it. Prepared according to the classic recipe, the sauce from a distance resembles black caviar, so some even call it “caviar for the poor.” Although in fact it has a very noble and refined taste.