Olive levain

SourDom

[img]http://www.sourdough.com.au/gallery/d/7838-1/olive+loaf.jpg[/img]

courtesy of Jeffery Hamelman's recipe

cheers
Dom

Category: 
up
240 users have voted.

Replies

TeckPoh's picture
TeckPoh 2007 March 28

Well....maybe there ain't any hot olives around here parts. Olive oil (especially EV) I like. But olives are just too salty to me.

Jeremy's picture
Jeremy 2007 March 28

Well when you go to Wales I will bring back some olives from Provence and will do a tasting!

Cheers,
Jeremy

SourDom 2007 March 28

thanks guys,

there a whole lot of very culturally specific foods, that often seem peculiar if not inedible to people who are not from that culture. Think of anchovies, dried shrimps, smen (moroccan aged butter), asafoetida

personally I am totally addicted to olives

D

Pab's picture
Pab 2007 March 28

Actually, I love olives... but not all of them. I have given up buying them in the UK because they are unbalanced (acidity to salt) too often and simply not pleasant to eat.

Do you eat Australian olives, Dom?

For me, asafoetida is good in tiny quantities, anchovies are fine but increasingly a culinary cliché here in the UK (too often for reasons of trendiness) but try Spanish pickled anchovies and we are talking, dried shrimps so so - as for smen, I trust that there isn't a consonant missing?

Happy eating!

Pete

PS is smen pleasant?

Bill44's picture
Bill44 2007 March 28

[quote="SourDom"]
thanks guys,

there a whole lot of very culturally specific foods, that often seem peculiar if not inedible to people who are not from that culture. Think of anchovies, dried shrimps, smen (moroccan aged butter), asafoetida

personally I am totally addicted to olives

D
[/quote]
I'm addicted to olives too. That's a great olive loaf Dom, you've managed to avoid the fruit separation that so often occurs in this type of loaf.

BTW. About two weeks ago I bottled my first batch of olives for the season. Managed to get hold of some green queen kalamata olives, and on test tasting yesterday they are shaping up well.

SourDom 2007 March 28

thanks Bill - nice to see you are still floating around these pages

Pete,
I buy my olives (for baking) from a huge mediterranean wholesaler in Melbourne in big tubs.
I buy the marinated Kalamatas for eating from the Vic market (TP will tell you all about that amazing market)

There is a big enough Greek and Italian population in Melbourne to ensure that it is possible to get hold of decent olives.

Good olives may be one of the many things that I miss from Melbourne when I move to the UK later in the year.

this loaf is the closest that I have come to the intensely addictive olive breads that you can buy from Laurent and other good bakeries around town.

cheers
Dom

PS, no smen is not missing any vowels. I have never tasted it (butter not being one of the things that I consume)

Bill44's picture
Bill44 2007 March 28

[quote="Jeremy"]
Can't wait to see them in a loaf Bill, how are the "tools?'

Jeremy
[/quote]
Have done some focaccia and baguette therapy, will be into some real loves soon.

SourYumMum's picture
SourYumMum 2007 March 28

(So if doctors don't eat butter .... )

I haven't tried smen either, but I saw a program on Moroccan cooking recently, and the woman who was preparing couscous for the family said that because smen isn't really available in Australia, she makes her couscous with blue castello cheese mixed through it as it is the closest similar taste that she has found.

I recently made her couscous recipe with the blue castello, and it was divine!!

[url]http://www21.sbs.com.au/foodsafari/index.php?pid=recipe&cid=10[/url]

I confess that blue castello is one of my favourite cheeses, so I was pretty heavy handed with it ... but it was really good!

Carol.

Pab's picture
Pab 2007 March 28

Interesting - has blue castello a strong flavour?

Are you coming to London, Dom?

Pete

SourYumMum's picture
SourYumMum 2007 March 29

Pete,

I guess so, it's a soft blue cheese from Denmark so you probably have it at your local supermarket.

I reckon it's quite addictive .... but I love blue cheeses!

Carol

SourDom 2007 March 29

not that far away Pete - Oxford, hence will (fingers crossed) be there for Mick's baking fest in Wales

SourYumMum's picture
SourYumMum 2007 March 29

J?

You mean King Island Roaring Forties?

ANYTHING from King Island Dairy is excellent! The legend of King Island is : [quote]
The infamous Roaring Forties gales which even today bring westerly winds of 100km per hour are said to have caused more than 60 shipwrecks along the island's treacherous coastline during the 1800s. According to legend, straw mattresses containing dried grass seeds were swept ashore from French and English shipwrecks and germinated in the rich soils, creating lush pastures.
[/quote]

But it's a great dairy and awesome products.

None of them good for you, but a little sometimes is good for your soul!

Jeremy's picture
Jeremy 2007 March 29

That's the one Carol!
Fabulous stuff, though in cous-cous I wonder? See smen is a fermented goats milk that is made like ghee or clarified butter, it's the fermentation and spices added that I think remind some of blue cheese!

Hope your well love your blog, your husband and I have something in common, Russian descent, although were Belorussians!

J

SourYumMum's picture
SourYumMum 2007 March 30

J,

Aussies are a fabulous mix of everything available! Pete's family were Russian/Ukrainian/Polish/English and mine Irish/Scottish/German/Prussian/Polish! Makes for good food learning!

You gotta trust me on the blue cheese in the couscous thing! It was a real, live Moroccan lady on the telly who was making and explaining that she uses it instead of smen as you can't get smen in Australia and it was the nearest final taste to the real deal.

And we loved it ... I'll definitely make it again.

Can you get all the King Island products over there ... the creams and so on? Unbelievably good gear. Cream you can stand a knife up in!

Jeremy's picture
Jeremy 2007 March 31

You know Carol,
cheese is really my favorite dairy product, though I am slightly lactose intolerant, so I stick with goat, sheep cheese most often! Don't know if they have all the line of creams, though we have some awesome shops here, nothing like Paris though!
Yeah and my family is Italo/Basque/French on my Mom's side, and russian and Czechk on the old mans half, oh yeah touch of Polish and there is a myth of a red head scotsman in the line as well!

Cheers,
J

pan 2007 August 19

Lovely loaf I love olives well as someone said earlier on it depends on one's upbringing

Post Reply

Already a member? Login