Tapenade with Basil

For 4 person
Preparation time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

• 120g black olives, stoned
• 25ml extra virgin olive oil
• 6g anchovies
• 1 tsp garlic
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• One nice handful of basil leaves

Method:

Blend the black olives with basil leaves, anchovies, garlic and olive oil. Now, it’s up to you. You can roughly or thinly blend it. Once it’s done, mix in the Dijon mustard and the lemon juice. Et voilà, it’s ready.

You can use it as a dip, on bruschettas, with bread, etc. But you can also top any kind of fish filet with this tapenade before baking it into the oven. Give it a try.

Tomato Relish

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 30-40 minutes

Ingredients:

• 500g of ripped tomatoes
• 5cm of ginger
• 2 tbsp of fish sauce
• 4 chili bird
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 300g caster sugar
• 10cl of red wine vinegar

Method:

In a blender, process half the tomatoes with the chili bird & ginger until you obtain a smooth paste. Keep for later. Then, dice the rest of the tomatoes. Don’t discard the seeds, and you can keep the skin on.

In a saucepan, throw in the tomato paste, the diced tomatoes and all the other ingredients. Bring to the boil stirring all the time otherwise it might burn. Reduce the fire, let simmer for 30-40 minutes and skim occasionally. Don’t forget to stir frequently as it’s burning very quickly at the bottom of the saucepan. Very quickly…

It’s ready when the relish is quite thick and shiny. Fill some clean jars with the mixture and refrigerate.

Mascarpone Dip

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

• 500g Mascarpone
• 3-4 chopped garlic cloves
• 2-3 tbsp of chopped chives
• The grated skin of 3 lime
• Salt & pepper

Method:

Mix all ingredients together. Sometimes, the mascarpone is quite thick, in this case, pour in some liquid cream, just a little. It is a very rich dip, but the grated skin of lime makes it refreshing as well. I really like this one.

Yogurt Dip

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

• 500g of Greek yogurt
• 3 chopped garlic cloves
• 2 tbsp of chopped chives
• 1 tbsp of chopped flat parsley
• 2 tbsp of roughly chopped walnuts
• Salt & pepper

Method:

Mix all ingredients together. It’s very nice with lots of garlic of course.

Persillade

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

• 3 chopped garlic cloves
• One nice handful of chopped flat parsley
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and white ground pepper

Method:

Mix all ingredients together, that’s it… Easy, isn’t it? Sometimes I add more herbs like thyme & rosemary. I use it mainly as a seasoning for salads, for decoration in my restaurant, or just on top of focaccia.

Of course, if you don’t like garlic that much, you can just use less garlic, on the other way, if you love garlic a lot, I mean, really a lot, just add more garlic cloves…

Garlic

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

• Plenty of garlic cloves
• extra virgin olive oil

Method:

The method to do so is quite obvious. I just always have a small jar of chopped garlic in my fridge as we use lots of it! And in my restaurant, I think we are using about 4 heads of garlic every day. With salads, vegetables, roasted potatoes, etc.

And as you read, all dips contain garlic. It’s an essential ingredient in my kitchen. Can’t cook without it.