One of the easiest and most flavorful appetizers you can make is olive tapenade. The olive tapenade that is common on appetizer menus today does not often reflect the classic Provencal dish from which the name applies. Tapenade comes from the word tapeno, which is French for caper. Besides olives, classic tapenade contains anchovies, capers and lemon juice and it is served as a spread for toasted baguette slices.   In America, most people think of olive tapenade as a puree of strongly flavored kalamata olives, olive oil, garlic and herbs.  Regardless of its translation, tapenade is now a word that is attached to many dips that don’t contain capers or even olives.  Whichever recipe you choose to make, olive tapenade is great for entertaining in hot weather  since it doesn’t require cooking and since olives are jarred, olive tapenade is a great year-round dip to make. It’s great for sandwiches, used as a pizza sauce or simply as a dip for a veggie tray.

Here is a list of four tapenade recipes we like on Foodista.

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I love hosting cocktail parties, and the best advice I was given from a catering master for hosting such parties was this: make half of your hors d’oeuvres and buy half. Brilliant! All too often we get caught up in elaborate menus and are exhausted by the time the guests arrive. It’s really not pretty answering the door when you’re all sweaty.

One of the things I love to make, but one would think was purchased from some fine delicatessen, is a creamy delicious pâté. Over the holidays Barnaby created a chicken liver pâté that proved at more than one party to be a crowd pleaser. In fact, among the spread of hors d’oeuvres his pâté clearly stood out as the gold winner, and best of all it was inexpensive to make and took only a few minutes.

Easy Crowd Pleaser Pâté

1 pound chicken livers
1 small yellow onion, sliced
Olive oil
1/4 cup brandy
1/4 cup heavy cream
Sel gris for garnish

Heat about one tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet and cook onions until soft. Add chicken livers and sauté until cooked through, about 5 minutes. Add brandy and simmer until alcohol has cooked off. Toss into a blender and blend on high. Periodically stop the blender and push down larger pieces with a wooden spoon to incorporate. Add cream and continue to blend until smooth. Place a mesh sieve over a bowl. Transfer mixture to the sieve and press through with a silicone spatula to remove any unsmooth pieces. Spoon pâté into one serving bowl or a few small ones, and smooth out the top. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least 20 minutes.

Garnish with a sprinkle of sel gris or other fine salt. Excellent served with cornichon, Dijon mustard and a grainy mustard on the side.

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You know those beautiful little artisan goat cheeses you see in fancy food stores? The ones that are about the size of a smashed golf ball and cost about $8? They’re so pretty with their dainty nasturtium flower on top, or the ones ever so lightly dusted “artisan-like” with peppercorns. Let me let you in on a little secret: it’s a racket those goat cheeses! Now, unless the cheese itself was milked from the teat of the artisan’s own goat (which some of them are, so don’t yell at me, but some of them are not), they take about two seconds to make. Well, maybe two minutes.

Don’t get me wrong, I truly appreciate the craft and the beauty of those little jewels, but who has $8 to spend these days on a tiny piece of cheese that wasn’t flown in from some moldy cave in France?

We had guests coming over to wish us a Happy New Year and I hadn’t yet been out to replenish “the larder.” Heck, it was noon and I still hadn’t even made it into the shower! Fortunately I had one of those long logs of goat cheese that I got at either Costco or Trader Joe’s during my holiday provisioning. Perfectly decent goat cheese for under $6. I cut the log into quarters and made half with some ground Turkish sweet chili peppers and the other with a blend of Italian herbs, red pepper flakes, and ground pepper. Beautiful and tasty.

Make your own blend of herbs that you already have in your spice cabinet (maybe some herbes de Provence and a little lavender or some smoked paprika), roll your petite cuts of goat cheese in it – and voilà – you’re a cheese artisan!

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Have you ever gotten disapproving looks at parties for eagerly scooping up too much of the caviar? That’s never happened to me per se (I’m much too sneaky to get caught), but if you have then you will enjoy this scoop-worthy roe.

Tarama is cod or carp roe that is salted, dried and sometimes smoked. When combined with olive oil, lemon and soaked bread a classic Greek meze, often referred to as the “common man’s caviar,” is created: taramosalata. Creamy, lemony, and with just the right amount of that fishy-saltiness, taramosalata is good and cheap enough to make you unapologetically snarf it down like a hungry Greek fisherman.

And I do.

Taramosalata
Prep time: 10 minutes

• 3 1/2 ounces of cod or carp roe (plain or smoked)
• 1 cup of extra virgin olive oil
• 2-3 slices of bread, crust removed
• juice of 2 lemons
• warm water

Run the bread under water, then squeeze dry. Put roe and bread in a food processor and blend (setting 2) until mixed. Add the olive oil and lemon juice slowly and pulse until creamy and thick. If it gets too thick use a bit of warm water to thin it out. Cover and place in the refrigerator until well chilled.

Personal experience note: unless you like the taste of a fish monger’s floor, then do not lick the tarama spoon <gag!>. Patiently wait until the recipe has been completed.

In a hurry? You can also find pre-made taramosalata in Mediterranean markets or on Amazon.com.

Thank you SunSirrah for your nice photo!

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