Pasta With Black Olive Puree
Pasta With Black Olive Puree
box pasta
can or jar artichoke hearts
jar of kalamata olives
block of parmesan and/or romano
optional:
olive oil, garlic, onion, spinach, salt, pepper, side dishes, several
glasses red wine
This recipe may have originally come from an edition of the New York Times Cookbook,
but since the source is lost, I am claiming it. In any event, the original
recipe probably involved beef boullion or something equally gross and
superfluous. The thing about this recipe is you don't really need the
recipe, except the first line, which is easily memorizable and which I
will get to presently.
The recipe's virtues are simplicity, that the ingredients store easily
(so have some in your bomb shelter), and it tastes really fucking great. I
could also get into the olive and its importance in history, mythology,
and western cuisine, but I told Jen I'd get a recipe to her last week, so
go look up the olive, it's a fascinating fruit. I think it's a fruit.
The recipe's drawback is its first line, which, labor-wise, is basically
the entire recipe:
REMOVE ALL PITS FROM A JAR OF KALAMATA OLIVES
Pitted Kalamatas are supposedly not as good and you still have to inspect
each one individually because the pitting is imperfect, so you may as well
buy unpitted olives, roll up your sleeves, and set to. Be scrupulous.
Remember that this dish is so good people will inhale it and a pit could
do damage to a tooth or get lodged in somebody's windpipe. I suppose that
was an unappetizing detail, but this dish is so good you could call it
Purple Turd Pasta and people would still have seconds. Seriously. Unless
you don't like olives in which case you really have no business eating.
And don't tell me that cilantro tastes like soap, I live in a different
world than you and my world is better.
I sometimes pour the juice from the jar of olives into the pasta water,
because I always err on the side of more olive.
So, did you pit those beauties yet? Good. The rest is only a little harder
than microwaving a burrito:
Boil water and at the appropriate time use it to cook a box of pasta,
preferably not linguine, spaghetti, or spaghettini, but something like
rotini or mastaciolli that will accumulate the sauce in its crevices.
Puree the black olives in a blender. If you hear a pit, panic, stop
the blender, and consider ordering a pizza. If you don't hear a pit
rattling in the blender, get another glass of wine: you deserve it for
having saved your guests from choking. You may also add half a can of
generic pitted black olives - just to make things more olive-tastic - and
the juice from the artichoke hearts for ease of blending.
Eat the other half of the can of generic pitted black olives.
You will have a skillet of some kind. If it pleases you, sautee some
garlic and/or onions in olive oil, but the added flavor will be strictly
unnecessary because this dish is all about tasting more like olives than
olives themselves.
You will pour the deep purple pureed mess into the skillet. Add the
quartered artichoke hearts. Cook a little bit, stirring. Add some of the
grated parmesan, save the rest to sprinkle on the servings. Add salt,
freshly ground black pepper, or anything you feel is missing. Sometimes I
add rinsed chopped spinach and puree it a very short time, or I will
blanch the spinach by putting it in a colander and pouring the pasta
water, along with the pasta, through. Totally fresh spinach never killed
anybody either. Not that I ever heard about anyway. But undercooked is the
way to go. Understand that I am the sort of person who puts spinach on ice
cream. Seriously, have you ever had a peanut butter and spinach sandwich?
Think about gado-gado, and other creative uses to which spinach and peanut
butter are put. Does spinach not start to sound better than grape jelly?
So drain the pasta, mix it all together and eat it, along with more wine,
garlic bread, a salad, or just by itself in its radiant olive-licious glory.
Aside from boiling the pasta (if you are truly a novice) and pitting and
pureeing the olives, you didn't really need to read any of this. Even the
cooking of the puree is optional. Use the best possible ingredients
always, and stay away from parmesan in a can.
2004