An Olive Oil Tasting Party

Each month my sisters and I spend a day together, sometimes working on a project and more often spending quality time over coffee and Boggle. Recently, we started taking turns planning an activity for the day. This time it was my turn, and I stumbled upon the idea of doing an olive oil taste test. It was unique enough that I decided to keep my plan a surprise. The only information I gave my sisters about my activity was that none of us have ever done it before. That piqued their interest and kept them guessing:

"Are we going to practice giving IV's to each other?"

"Is it a hotdog eating contest?"

"How much carpentry have you done?"

"Handstands? New aerobics moves?"

In between laughing at their ideas, I was doing research on olives and oils, a fascinating study. Here are only a few points of interest I gleaned and shared with my sisters:

• The black olives you buy in tin cans at supermarkets are actually green olives that have been treated with oxygen and iron compounds to give them their shiny, patent leather appearance.
• "Cold pressed" is largely an archaic term. Extra-virgin olive oil is made from olives fresh off the tree and ground by a large garbage disposal-type machine. The oil is extracted from that paste by a centrifuge. No heat is used. If there are imperfections in the oil, disqualifying it from earning an extra-virgin olive oil status, it is heated, making it refined or "Pure Olive Oil." 
• All olives are excessively bitter straight from the tree, even ripe, black ones. They need to be brined to make them palatable. 
• Color does not affect the flavor of olive oil. Experts use blue containers when tasting olive oils.

For the taste test, I found Italian, Chilean, and Californian olive oils which we used as dipping oils and to dress a simple salad. The Italian oil had the most bite, a flavor that comes from polyphenols which are the healthy, cancer fighting, cholesterol lowering properties. Our favorite oil was the milder one from Chile. Flavor is affected both by varietals of olives and regions they are grown in. If olives are harvested early, they have a harsher flavor. The riper the olive, the softer the taste. Tuscany oils tend to be pungent and peppery because the olives need to be harvested before snowfall; our Italian oil likely was affected by that. 

I made an artisan bread to serve as a conveyor for the seasoned dipping oil. Even with garlic and herbs, the different flavors of the three olive oils came through. 

The printouts list words the experts use to describe oils (grassy,
peppery, buttery, soft, etc.) to help us knowledgeably describe their smell and taste.

To round out our meal, we had baked, herbed ricotta to eat on the bread, falafel, stuffed grape leaves, and an orange-date salad. (Three ladies with not much else on their agenda for the day can make a fine lunch.) 

Stuffed grape leaves in the making. Yum!

Oranges, dates, almonds,
cinnamon and mint. Delish!

While I might never host another Olive Oil Tasting Party, as fun as it was, I am completely sold on the artisan bread. I found the recipe on this blog.

No-Knead Artisan Bread

3 1/4 cups flour

2 tsp. kosher salt

1/2 tsp. yeast

1 1/2 cups warm water

Mix flour, salt and yeast together, then add the water. Stir with a wooden spoon until it becomes a cohesive, craggy mass. 

Cover with plastic wrap poked with a toothpick or in a plastic container with the lid not entirely closed. Let it rise on the counter overnight and as long as 24 hours. It should get little bubbles or "eyes" on the top when it is ready to bake.

When you are ready to bake it, use well-floured hands to form it into a ball, manipulating it as little as possible. You can cut an X or slashes on top if you like. 

Let it rest while your oven preheats. 

Preheat oven and the baking dish to 450 degrees. 

When they are hot, carefully place the bread into the baking dish. 

Bake covered for 30 minutes. 

Uncover and bake until brown, about seven minutes. 

NOTES: --Whole wheat flour doesn't work well with this recipe.
--Kosher salt is strongly recommended. I made it with regular salt and was happy with the results. But maybe I don't know what I'm missing.
--Bake it in a 5.5 quart Dutch oven, on a baking sheet with a bowl inverted over it as a lid, in a crockpot insert with an ovenproof cover, or, as I did, any large glass casserole dish with a lid.

--If you like, you can add herbs and cheese when you  mix in the flour.