Erica De Mane

Braised tuna with marsala, mint, and black olives.

Recipes:

Winter Panzanella with Burst Cherry Tomatoes, Black Olives, and Caciocavallo
Braised Tuna with Marsala, Mint, and Black Olives

My black olive craving has really taken hold in this winter. At this time in my life just about everything tastes better with a few black olives thrown in. I’ve been experimenting using them in some dishes where I wouldn’t think they’d make sense at all, and in fact in some cases they didn’t make sense at all. For instance I recently made a sweet yeast bread, a type of foccacia, and instead of topping it with grapes, as I usually do (this is a type of Tuscan wine-harvest bread I make in the fall), I tried black olives. It was actually awful. The sugary dough and salty olives proved to be an unappealing match. A little sweetness with olives is good; too much, I discovered, is just weird. I first discovered one wonderful use of sweetness with black olives in a pizza rustica my family always bought for Easter; it had a very sweet pastry crust, but the filling of ricotta, salami, black olives, and provolone was strictly savory; it was perfect. I was thinking about this pizza rustica when I tried the focaccia idea, but in this case there wasn’t enough savory to balance the sweetness. Live and learn about black olives.

In my last month’s posting about black olives I went on a bit about how hard it is to find great Italian olives in this country. I’ve since checked in with my friends at Gustiamo.com, my favorite Italian food mail-order source, and procured myself a few jars of their black olives from the Cilento region of Campania, grown and put up at the Masseria Maida near Paestum. They sure made me happy. They’re dark, plump, and packed in the fruity extra-virgin olive oil from the region, with a subtle touch of garlic. These delicious olives were the inspiration for the two additional black olive recipes I offer you now and will be discussing momentarily (see also my Pappardelle with Black Olives, Lemon, and Cream, from my November 19 web posting).

In cold weather I find myself working black olives into almost all my pasta dishes, pasta with tomatoes, with sausage, with fish, with ragus. It does get a little monotonous, and I wish I would stop, but it’s not really the olives I tire of; it’s the pasta. So when I get sick of pasta with olives, I make panzanella, a Tuscan bread salad, with olives, just to wake things up a bit. I enjoy taking summer dishes and transforming them into cold-weather fare. What makes a panzanella successful, I believe, is good olive oil and juicy summer tomatoes (plus high-quality bread), so in winter months I use supermarket cherry tomatoes, which are almost always sweet, and give them a quick sauté just until they burst, concentrating their sweetness without sacrificing their much-needed juices that will soak into the stale bread. I trade the light and refreshing qualities of summer panzanella for a rich, almost meaty version, adding, of course, black olives (there’s something about the mix of black olives and seared or roasted tomatoes that tastes a little like a steak to me).

When I’ve had it with starch-and-olive variations, I turn to my long list of seafood-and-olive variations, a time-honored pairing if there ever was one. This week I played around with a dish my family sometimes serves as part of our Christmas Eve fish dinner, a braised cod, either fresh or dried, with tomatoes, black olives, Marsala, and mint, a real Sicilian mix of flavors. Tuna is wonderful when slowly braised, so I substituted it for the cod and it worked out nicely, and I think it’s a nice change from the semi-raw tuna I’m almost always served in restaurants. If you’re looking for something new for your Christmas Eve fish extravaganza, you might want to include this. I recently served it with couscous flavored with pistachios, a pinch of cinnamon, and a little more fresh mint, just to keep the theme going.

Have a happy black olive Christmas.

Winter Panzanella with Burst Cherry Tomatoes, Black Olives, and Caciocavallo

(Serves 4 as a first course, lunch, or light supper)

4 cups crusty Italian bread, cut into 1-inch cubes
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 pints cherry tomatoes, stemmed
Salt
Black pepper
1 garlic clove, minced
1 shallot, thinly sliced
A generous splash of dry white wine
A handful of black olives, pitted and cut in half
A palmful of capers, preferably salt-packed
A large sprig of marjoram, the leaves lightly chopped
A handful of flat leaf parsley leaves, lightly chopped
1/4 pound caciocavallo cheese, cut into tiny cubes (I chose a Sicilian Ragusano for this)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Place the bread cubes on a sheet pan, spreading them out in one layer. Dry them out in the oven, just until they’re crisp but a bit of softness still remains in the center. Let them cool.

Place the bread cubes in a large, shallow serving bowl.

In a large skillet, heat about 3 tablespoons of olive oil over high heat. When very hot, add the cherry tomatoes, salt, black pepper, the garlic, and the shallots, and sauté, shaking them around a lot, until the tomatoes start to burst and let off juice, about 4 minutes. Add the white wine and let it bubble for a few seconds. Pour the tomatoes and all the skillet juices over the bread cubes, and give them a toss. Add the olives, capers, marjoram, parsley, and caciocavallo, give everything a generous drizzle of fresh olive oil, and toss again. Let the panzanella sit for about 10 minutes before serving, to give the juices a chance to soak into the bread.

Braised Tuna with Marsala, Mint, and Black Olives

(Serves 4 as a main course)

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
Salt
A generous pinch of sugar
A pinch of Cayenne or Aleppo pepper
1 1/2 pounds thick tuna steak, cut into approximately 2-inch chunks
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 large leek, cleaned and chopped, using only the white and the tender light green parts
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
1/2 cinnamon stick
1/4 cup sweet Marsala (if you have only dry Marsala, add a pinch of sugar)
1 35-ounce can Italian plum tomatoes, chopped, with the juice
A handful of black olives
A palmful of pine nuts, lightly toasted
A handful of fresh mint leaves, lightly chopped, plus a few whole sprigs for garnish

Sprinkle the flour on a large plate, and mix in the salt, sugar, and Cayenne, or Aleppo. Toss the tuna chunks in the flour, shaking off excess flour.

In a large skillet, heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium high heat. When hot, add the tuna, and brown it on both sides. Take the tuna out of the pan (it will still be quite rare). Pour out the excess oil and add 2 tablespoons of fresh oil. Add the leek, garlic, and the cinnamon stick, and sauté until everything is fragrant, about 4 minutes. Add the Marsala, and let it bubble away. Add the tomatoes, and season with salt and a pinch more Cayenne or Aleppo. Simmer uncovered on medium heat for about 6 or 7 minutes. Turn off the heat, and add the tuna, the olives, the pine nuts, and the chopped mint. Give it a stir, and cover the skillet. Let it sit for five minutes. The heat from the sauce will gently finish cooking the tuna. Remove the tuna chunks, and place them on a large platter. Pour the sauce over the top, and garnish with mint sprigs.