“Green Couscous” – It’s the Green Ingredients – From Yotam Ottolenghi

Posted on April 12, 2013 by consumers

I like to fish, and I love preparing sautéed fish. And it just so happens the “green couscous” below would be a good pairing for fish, according to famed London chef Yotam Ottolenghi. He calls it “green” because of the color of the ingredients: arugula, green onions, green chile, parsley, cilantro, tarragon, dill and mint. (Click here to see the recipe.)

Green couscous Ottolenghi calls this side salad “good looking and even better tasting.”

“It has strong flavors and is extremely healthful, but still feels light and comforting,” he says in his acclaimed  vegetarian cookbook Plenty (Chronicle Books, 2011). “Adding some feta will make it a bit more substantial.”

The herbs in this salad, by the way, are used to prepare an olive oil-based herb paste, which is added to the cooked couscous. Sautéed onion and cumin are added to the couscous, too, which is gently mixed  with the arugula, toasted pistachios, green onions, and green chile. (Click here to see the recipe.)

I’d use a robust oil like our Miller’s Blend or Arbosana to pull together the strong flavors – and then sit down and enjoy it with my fish.

Bon appétit,

California Olive Ranch Master Miller Bob Singletary

 

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Culinary Bliss: Avocado Mash on Multigrain Toast with “Really Good” Olive Oil

Posted on April 9, 2013 by consumers

One of life’s simple pleasures is spreading lusciously ripe avocado on good artisan bread, and then adding a generous drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil on top of the avocado – along with a sprinkle of flaky sea salt. The culinary dream team of Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer have kicked this wonderful combo up a notch with their avocado mash on multigrain toast. (Click here to see the recipe.) Avocado Mash on Multigrain Toast

Toasted multigrain bread is drizzled with “really good extra virgin olive oil” while still warm. Each slice gets a half a ripe avocado, which is mashed and spread with a fork or knife. The avocado gets an additional drizzle of olive oil, along with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, a pinch or two of Aleppo pepper or crushed red pepper flakes, and a sprinkle of salt. The toasts are served with lemon halves. (Click here to see the recipe.)

“These toasts have served us well for a late-morning breakfast, lunch, or a quickly made supper,” Hamilton and Hirsheimer write in their wonderful book Canal House Cooks Every Day (Andrews-McMeel Publishing, 2012). “But we could find an excuse to eat them anytime.”

I’d use my favorite oil – our robust Miller’s Blend – to prepare the toasts. Its fruity taste and peppery kick would add a nice dimension.

Hamilton and Hirsheimer, by the way, were among the heavyweights who created Saveur magazine. They’re famous for their wonderfully simple, seasonal recipes (like this one) and groundbreaking, realistic food photography. In 2006, Hirsheimer and Hamilton launched their own culinary publishing powerhouse that’s definitely worth an online visit: Canal House Cooking, where you’ll find boatloads of great recipes and drop-dead gorgeous photographs.

Bon appétit,

California Olive Ranch Master Miller Bob Singletary

 

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Spring at the Ranch – An Update On What’s Happening in the Olive Groves

Posted on April 5, 2013 by consumers
Artois - April 2013

Olive Tree in Artois – April 2013

Our olive trees have woken up from their winter slumber. And we’re heading into our “spring push” at our northern California ranches. In the olive groves, our orchard teams are watering the trees and doing light pruning to prepare them for the growing season. I asked one of our ranchers, Brian Mori, to give us a ranch update. Brian works with our family farmers, or contract growers, on crop practices, harvest, and quality.

How are you getting the trees ready for their spring growth spurt?

BM: It’s been a dry winter and an unusually dry spring. So we began irrigating the trees earlier than usual. We’ve also begun doing some field prep, like light pruning on the trees.

What are the biggest responsibilities during spring?

BM: Irrigating the trees to maintain proper moisture during their critical development period. We also want to ensure the trees are nutritionally balanced going into the flowering period.

What kind of weather are you anticipating this spring?

BM: It seems like we’re holding in a dry weather pattern. We’re expecting minimal precipitation.

When do you expect our olive trees to start blooming?

Brian Mori

Brian Mori

BM: If the current conditions continue, we anticipate a spring bloom in the first to second week of May. It typically occurs in mid- to late May. It’s probably around 7 to 10 days ahead of schedule. It’s been warm. We’ve had temperatures in the mid- to high 70s. That’s caused the trees to waken from their winter semi-dormancy earlier than usual.

What exactly does the bloom involve?

BM: The trees produce, or set, their flowers. Olive trees are wind-pollinated – in other words, the wind carries the pollen from tree to tree. Other trees, like almonds, require bees for pollination. The flowers open up from the initial bloom to the full bloom over three to four days. You have male and female flowers. Both are needed in the pollination process. Only the so-called “perfect flowers” will produce olives, or fruit. Essentially, a perfect flower has both male and female parts, which give it the ability to produce fruit. Other male flowers – known as stamen flowers – don’t bear fruit but assist in the pollination process.

When do you first see olives on the trees?

BM: You’ll see the very, very beginning of a developing olives by the end of May. But it’s a very small and undeveloped fruit at that point. It’s about the size of a grain of rice. In other words, pretty small.

Bon appétit,

California Olive Ranch Master Miller Bob Singletary

 

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Olive Oil Compound Delivering Peppery Kick May Prevent Alzheimer’s-Study

Posted on April 2, 2013 by consumers

As I get older, I’m always on the lookout for news about keeping Alzheimer’s disease at bay. So I was thrilled about a new study suggesting that a natural compound which gives good olive oil it’s peppery kick – oleocanthol – may also help “shuttle” abnormal Alzheimer’s disease proteins from the brain. Fresh extra virgin olive oil

Researchers at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, who prepared the study, noted that Alzheimer’s disease (AD) affects about 30 million people worldwide. But the prevalence is lower in Mediterranean countries.

“Extra virgin olive oil-derived oleocanthal associated with the consumption of (the) Mediterranean diet has the potential to reduce the risk of AD or related neurodegenerative dementias,” the study concluded. It appears in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience. (Click here to see a news release about the study.)

Scientists once attributed the lower level of Alzheimer’s disease in Mediterranean countries to olive oil’s high concentration of healthful monounsaturated fats. The traditional Mediterranean diet is rich in olive oil as well as seafood, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and nuts.

More recent research suggested the true protective agent in olive oil may be oleocanthal, which has effects that protect nerve cells from the kind of damage that occurs in Alzheimer’s disease, according to the researchers. (Oleocanthol also has been found to be a naturally occurring antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent.)

Researchers at the University of Louisiana at Monroe focused on whether oleocanthal helps lower the brain’s accumulation of beta-amyloid (Aβ), believed to be the culprit behind Alzheimer’s disease.

The researchers described tracking the effects of oleocanthal in the brains and cultured brain cells of lab mice used as stand-ins for humans in such research. In both instances, according to the researchers, oleocanthal showed a consistent pattern in which it boosted production of two proteins and key enzymes believed to be critical in removing Aβ from the brain.

It’s one more reason why I’ll be pouring on the olive oil at tonight’s dinner table.

California Olive Ranch Master Miller Bob Singletary

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A Spicy Pasta with Racy Origins: Spaghetti alla Puttanesca

Posted on March 26, 2013 by consumers

Spaghetti alla puttanesca usually is translated from Italian as “whore’s pasta.” Racy accounts abound about the origins of this spicy tomato sauce. They typically involve ladies of the evening. Ladies aside, puttanesca sauce is a tangy, somewhat salty sauce made with ingredients typical of Southern Italian cuisine: tomatoes, olive oil, olives, capers, and garlic. (Click here to see featured recipe.) Puttanesca Sauce Spaghetti alla puttanesca is a modern creation. As best I can tell, it was created after World War II. In Italy, recipes for puttanesca sauce vary by region. Some versions call for chili peppers. Others might omit the garlic and anchovies. The version featured here includes all of the above. (Click here to see featured recipe.)

This recipe comes from Rao’s Recipes from the Neighborhood (St. Martin’s Press, 2004), by Frank Pellegrino. Use our Everyday Fresh oil to prepare the sauce.

Pellegrino, a New York restaurateur and actor, says puttanesca sauce is great with spaghetti – as well as with baked or sautéed shrimp or fish fillets.

And, speaking of variations of spaghetti alla puttanesca, you might also like cookbook author Giuliano Hazan’s “white” puttanesca sauce, which omits the tomatoes. (Click here to see the recipe.)

Bon appétit,

California Olive Ranch Master Miller Bob Singletary

 

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Olive Oil and Weight Loss: New Study Suggests It Can Help You Feel Full

Posted on March 22, 2013 by consumers

I’ve just read more interesting news about the health benefits of olive oil: Serving olive oil at meals may help you keep the pounds off, a new study indicates. Why? European researchers suggested the smell of olive oil can make you feel full. Extra virgin olive oil being poured onto a spoon

They also studied the impact of other natural fats and oils on satisfying people’s appetites.

“Olive oil had the biggest satiety effect,” Peter Schieberle, professor at Technical University of Munich in Germany and director of the German Research Center for Food Chemistry, said. (Click here to see the news release about the study.)

“Our findings show that aroma is capable of regulating satiety,” added Schieberle, who spearheaded the study. “We hope that this work will pave the way for the development of more effective reduced-fat food products that are nonetheless satiating.”

The study follows another  one a few weeks ago suggesting a  Mediterranean diet – particularly one rich with extra virgin olive oil and nuts – lowers the risk of stroke and other heart problems by 30 percent among high-risk individuals. (Read blog post about the study.)

In the latest study, researchers at TUM and the University of Vienna tracked study participants over a three-month period while they ate 500 grams of low-fat yogurt daily. Some had olive oil added to the yogurt, while others had lard, butterfat, or rapeseed oil added. The yogurt was a supplement to the participants’ normal diet.

The olive oil group showed a higher concentration of a so-called satiety hormone - serotonin – in their blood. “Subjectively speaking, these participants also reported that they found the olive oil yogurt very filling,” Schieberle said.

During the study period, no member of this group recorded an increase in their body fat percentage or their weight.

The results surprised researchers, because rapeseed oil and olive oil contain similar fatty acids. So they next focused on the aroma compounds in olive oil. In the study’s second part, a group of participants was given yogurt with olive oil aroma extracts and a control group was given plain yogurt.

“The results were conclusive,” the news release noted. The calorie intake for the olive oil group stayed the same. The control group, by contrast, consumed an extra 176 kilocalories per day.

“The aroma group adapted their eating habits – but the control group participants were obviously not able to do likewise,” Schieberle said. “We also found that in comparison to the other group, the control group had less of the satiety hormone serotonin in their blood.”

Bon appétit,

California Olive Ranch Master Miller Bob Singletary

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A Tomato Pasta Sauce That’s All About the Olive Oil

Posted on March 19, 2013 by consumers

This rustic Italian dish – pasta pomodoro – showcases tomatoes. And because canned tomatoes are used, you can prepare it year-round. This version comes from the family-style Italian restaurant in New York, Carmine’s. The founding chef,  Michael Ronis, says this pomodoro is all about the olive oil. (Click here to see the recipe.) Pasta Pomodoro

“To be really, really, really good, pomodoro demands lots of oil,” Ronis and Mary Goodbody write in Carmine’s Family-Style Cookbook (St. Martin’s Press, 2008), where the recipe appears. “We use a quarter cup of olive oil for four servings, which puts our pomodoro right over the top.” Use our Everyday Fresh or fruity Arbequina oils.

In addition to the tomatoes, the sauce has lot of garlic – eight cloves – parsley, white wine, basil, and prosciutto.  (Click here to see the recipe.) It’s a simple dish – one you could practically prepare while the pasta cooks in the water.

Bon appétit,

California Olive Ranch Master Miller Bob Singletary

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Pasta w/ Olives, Capers & Anchovies – or a “White” Puttanesca Sauce

Posted on March 15, 2013 by consumers

Puttanesca sauce is a tangy, somewhat salty spaghetti sauce made with ingredients typical of Southern Italian cuisine: tomatoes, olive oil, olives, capers, and garlic. Giuliano Hazan,  son of famed Italian cookbook writer Marcella Hazan, calls this riff “a tomato-less version – or “bianca” in Italian, meaning white. (Click here to see the recipe.) Spaghetti with Olives, Capers and Anchovies

Hazan substitutes thick bread crumbs for the tomatoes “to hold all the flavors together.” The dish also combines garlic, parsley, olives, anchovies, extra virgin olive oil, and capers. (Click here to see the recipe.)

The recipe appears in Giuliano Hazan’s Thirty Minute Pasta (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2009). You could use our robust Arbosana or Miller’s Blend oils to give even more punch to the flavor.

Hazan says homemade breadcrumbs or panko-style breadcrumbs from the store will work fine in this dish. His final advice: “Though you might think that very little, if any, salt is needed here, unless you season with salt at least moderately, the pasta will taste bland.”

You can find more pasta recipes in our March eNewsletter. (Click here to see the eNewsletter.)

Bon appétit,

California Olive Ranch Master Miller Bob Singletary

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A “New World Take” On a Classic Italian Pasta: Spaghetti Aglio e Oli

Posted on March 12, 2013 by consumers

Viviane Baquet Farre, creator of the gorgeous food e-magazine foodandstyle.com, calls this pasta “my New World take on Spaghetti Aglio e Oli.” The legendary Italian pasta typically combines olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, and salt. Viviane’s New World version is spiced up with jalapeño peppers instead of red pepper flakes. (Click here to see the recipe.) Spaghetti with Olive Oil and Pan-Fried Jalapeños “As the jalapeños pan-fry, they become mellow, smoky, sweet – infusing the oil and the pasta with all their spunkiness,” Viviane notes. She recommends our Everyday Fresh or Miller’s Blend oils to make this pasta.

Her inspiration for this dish dates to a Spaghetti Aglio e Oli that she shared with her husband at a restaurant in Venice. “The dish was so simple: no parsley or cheese thrown on top,” she notes “The pasta was tossed with fruity olive oil, garlic (loads of it), red pepper flakes and salt – nothing more.”

Viviane and her husband were hooked.

“We ordered a bowl to share,” she recalls. “Within 5 minutes we’d devoured every strand of spaghetti, so we ordered a second bowl. When our server came around to see if we wanted to order dessert, we ordered a third bowl!”

As Viviane notes, it’s a simple dish. And so is her version – combining the olive oil, jalapeños (6-8), garlic (12 cloves), salt, and spaghetti. Each individual serving of the pasta also gets a finishing drizzle of olive oil. (Click here to see the recipe.)

If you’re a pasta lover, like I am, you can fine more great recipes in our March eNewsletter, which showcases pasta. (Click here to see the eNewsletter.)

Bon appétit,

California Olive Ranch Master Miller Bob Singletary

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Tasting Notes for Our New Olive Oils from the 2012 Harvest

Posted on March 8, 2013 by consumers

Mother Nature was good to our olives during the 2012 growing season. Fine weather here in northern California delivered a flavorful batch of new oils, which we’re now bottling. I taste our oils (a lot!) during the milling and blending process. Below are tasting notes I’ve put together for you about our three specialty oils made from last fall’s olive harvest.

Before starting, it’s worth remembering that olive oil is much like wine in key ways. Like Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay, which are named for their grape varietals, our Arbequina and Arbosana extra virgin olive oils are named for the olives we crush to make the oils.

Like wine grapes, olives also have different flavor profiles. And just like some wines are a blend of grapes, our Miller’s Blend oil is a combination of Arbequina, Arbosana, and Koroneiki olives.

Arbequina: Now is the time of the year when the true quality and flavor of our Arbequina can be fully understood. And this season’s fruit is nothing less than excellent. The harvest season was a complete success and the farm operations team did an incredible job of getting the freshest fruit possible to the mill. Our Arbequina from the 2012 harvest is very complex with a medium nose, medium floral and fruit profile on the tongue, followed by a slight hint of picante at the finish.

Arbosana: This oil is so special with its grassy, herbaceous and green fruit flavor profile. Early on it can carry a stringent flavor profile; but that smooths out as the season progresses.  It’s worth stressing the importance of selecting just the right time to harvest the Arbosana olive. Good timing is critical to having a well balanced oil. If you’re too early, the flavors are green and harsh and take time to settle out. That being said, the 2012 Arbosana is one of our more distinctive oils, and you’ll be sure to enjoy it.

Miller’s Blend: This, of course, is my all-time favorite. Our taste panel selects the perfect combination of Arbequina, Arbosana, and Koroneiki olives to make this very complex flavor profile. It’s the best selection of all three varieties – combined with the exact date the olives were harvested – that make this an excellent oil. It has all the attributes of each of the three olives. And, given the percentage mix of each olive, Miller’s Blend has it all when it comes to taste: fruity, ripe green olive, floral, grassy – with slight pepper at the finish. Please take it from me: This is truly excellent oil!

Bon appétit,

California Olive Ranch Master Miller Bob Singletary

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