Moroccan Olive Bread

We’re back to the old grind as they say; 10 hours of laundry, and a little grocery shopping later I’m back in my kitchen ready to cook up a storm!
Both JT and I picked up head colds while we were away; you know, the nasty, sneezey, sniffley, coughy kind? Chicken soup to the rescue! Everyone has their cold-cure secret recipe handed down from generation to generation so I won’t blog about it now, but what I will blog about is the amazing olive bread I made to accompany the cold cure soup! WARNING: you have to really LOVE olives, it will be too olivey if you’re just so-so on them!
We had this particular olive bread several times (almost every time) during our trip, it’s addictive. You just can’t stop! Not sure if I mentioned this before, but Moroccan food is not well salted, which is good because most of the time I find restaurant food too salty. This bread, on the other hand, is on the salty side, which goes perfectly with Moroccan food, or cold cure chicken soup. I found the recipe at Cooking with Alia please recall I made her Sellou as one of my Trio of Moroccan desserts. Since it worked so well, I thought I’d try her Moroccan Olive Bread. We made a typical Moroccan Bread at Maison MK in Marrakech and I discovered that Moroccan bread tends to be ‘shaggier’ than Western bread (looser and sticky to start). Then, after a rising, you add flour little by little to pull in the dough until it is no longer sticky. I think I used an additional cup of flour for this step! Bottom line it worked like a charm! Light, fluffy very olive tasting bread. DELICIOUS!
Another thing I should mention is that I used real Moroccan olive oil and its taste is so unique and delicious, I don’t think normal olive oil will do. But if you can’t find the genuine Moroccan olive oil, be sure to use the darkest and richest olive oil you can find, it will make a difference. Also, I halved the recipe but left the olive oil as full quantity! The technique is what we learned in Maison MK.
Thanks Alia, this recipe will be definitely made again in our home.

Moroccan Olive Bread

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups of flour (keep extra flour on the side for kneading)
• 3/4 cup of warm water
• 3 oz of black olives cut into small pieces (I used 1/2 sun dried and 1/2 kalamata)
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 tablespoons of thyme (I had only 1 tsp and it was fine)
• 1/2 tablespoon of dry yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon of sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt

Directions:

1. Activate the dry yeast (I used instant) with the sugar and warm water. Let the yeast mixture rest for 5 minutes. The yeast is active if the mixture expands and bubbles up.
2. Add the olive oil, thyme, and salt to the yeast mixture.
3. Gradually add the flour to the mixture until the flour is completely absorbed. You will end up with a very sticky/shaggy dough.
4. Fold the olives into the dough.
5. Cover the dough and let it rest in a warm place for 30 minutes.
6. After 30 minutes, the dough doubles in volume. Sprinkle your workspace generously with flour and place the dough over it.
7. Sprinkle the dough with flour and knead for the next 10 minutes using the palm of your hand. Add flour to the dough until you end up with a malleable non-sticky dough. It should just be non-sticky, not shiny like regular bread dough. You will know when the dough stops sticking to your hand.
8. You can make round breads by flattening the ball of dough with the palm of your hand and then pinch the edges up and in to make a nice ball.
9. Transfer the bread pinched side down onto a baking pan covered with parchment paper. Flatten a little with the palm of your hand.
10. Cover the boule and let rest in a warm place for 30 minutes.
11. Preheat your oven to 420° F degrees.
12. Place your baking pan in the lower third of the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until done. I like a slightly crustier crumb, so next time I will brush with egg white, like you do with a French stick! Or you can also put a pan of water in the oven with the bread for the first 15 minutes.

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Retro Olive Nuggets for Easter Cocktail Party

We’re having JT’s family over for cocktails after our RCYC luncheon. I’m making totally retro food, Deviled Eggs, Mini Easter Cupcakes and Retro Olive Nuggets. JT’s sister used to make a version of these for the cottage cocktail parties their parents held in the 80’s! JT and I talked about making them for Easter and coincidentally a Balderson Cheese booklet had an intriguing recipe, so it had to be done!

Retro Olive Nuggets

Retro Olive Nuggets (my variation, of course)

• 1/4 lb Shredded Aged Cheddar (I used orange, but you can use white too!)
• 1/4 cup softened unsalted butter (the original recipe asks for salted butter, but the olives and the chipotle spice I added made it salty enough!)
• 3/4 cup all purpose gluten free flour (or all purpose flour)
• 1 tsp zantham gum (not required if using all purpose flour)
• 1 tsp Sexy Gourmet Chipotle Spice mix
• about 30 small pimento stuffed olives
• 1/2 cup sesame seeds

1. Pre heat oven to 350°F.
2. Place all ingredients but the sesame seeds and olives into a food processor and process until it becomes a firm ball of dough.
3. Remove from processor and rollout on a piece of parchment to about 2 -3 mm thick.
4. Using a 5cm cookie cutter, cut circles. Wrap one olive per cut circle and roll into sesame seeds until well coated.
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes until sesame seeds are somewhat golden.
6. Enjoy warm or cool. We preferred the flavour once they cooled to room temperature, you really taste the cheese and the sexy spice!

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