It's me, your friendly neighborhood olive oil lady. Sorry you haven't heard from me in a while. But here I am! I promise I haven't forgotten about you. I hope your summer is going well and that you all had a fun, safe July Fourth Weekend. I have been doing all the Fayetteville summertime things: concerts in the park, botanical gardens, farmer's market, chigger bites, sun burns, trying to keep my children occupied for 8 hours a day. You know, the usual.
We have a couple of new items in the store. First, there's Madagascar Black Pepper Olive Oil. At first, it seems like just another lovely mild olive oil. And then you get a hint of cracked black pepper that creeps up on you. It's a really fun oil. To me, it tastes like one of the medium/robust extra virgin olive oils, but with no bitterness and all the peppery finish. Try it with pasta, parmesan, and a fried egg. (Side note: have you guys tried Pozza's pasta? It's hand made in Tontitown! It's amazing! I can always find it at Harp's and it's sooooo good.) Try it on popcorn. Add it to your Steak and Potato Foil Pack Dinner. I like it! I think we'll keep it around.
Next, we brought back the Alfoos Mango White Balsamic. This is a sweet and smooth hot-weather worthy balsamic. Add it to fizzy water for a fun drink. It pairs well with the Persian Lime Olive Oil, which happens to be on sale this month. Take 20% off for flavor boosting fun! Use the Mango/Lime combo on fish tacos and peppery arugula salads. This is a crowd favorite that we only keep around for summer, so get it while you can!
We are fully stocked on olives, my friends. We have the green chili/garlic stuffed, red chili/garlic stuffed, lemon stuffed, and Abuela style olives on the shelves. Every one of these takes martinis and Bloody Mary's to the next level. Also, your charcuterie plates will be sure to impress with these green beauties in the mix.
We will be switching out extra virgin olive oils soon. Right now, we have a really excellent selection of Northern Hemisphere oils from Portugal, Spain and Italy. As wonderful as the current olive oils are, the varieties were somewhat rare. We have Cobrancosa, Chiquitita, Biancolilla, Cerasuola, and Nocellara. Yeah, those are not the varieties that we generally know and love. But fear not! Over the next few months we'll get in the Southern Hemisphere harvest, which includes: Australian Koroneiki, Hojiblanca, Picholine, Manzanillo, and Barnea (which we haven't had since we opened in 2014!); and Chilean Arbosana, Arbequina, Picual, and Coratina. Yes...those are familiar. And award winning! I think this is going to be an amazing year for olive oil.
Since I have a lot of new readers and I haven't written to you old hats in half a year (apologies, again), I feel like I should explain why we switch out our EVOOs. Feel free to skip this paragraph if you know the ins and outs of olive oil. Olive oil is a fruit juice. Fruit juices do not keep. They are not like wine or balsamic that get better with age. You do not want to hoard olive oil. It oxidizes and becomes rancid with time. Generally, from the time the olives are pressed into oil, you have about 16 months of freshness. Then it is time to toss out any old oil. Olives are harvested in the fall (October/November for Northern Hemisphere and May/June for the Southern Hemisphere) and immediately pressed into oil. In our store, we keep the freshest olive oil possible. That's why we switch oils as the new harvests come in and why we have the date the oils were pressed on the fusti tag. I know it can be frustrating when you find an oil you love and then we don't have it anymore, but I promise it's better than supplying you with half-rancid oil. We always try our best to keep your favorite varieties around, but no batch of oil will taste exactly the same from harvest to harvest. They will, however, be delicious!
Now, on to what you guys really want...a new recipe. I have been decidedly uninspired when it comes to cooking lately. I'm talking spruced-up ramen noodles, egg fried rice, peanut butter-honey sandwiches, and cereal-for-dinner uninspired...since February. The struggle, my friends, has been real. But now it's summer. And I remembered that grills are magical beings that can transform a package of chicken thighs into a delicacy. Seared tuna steaks, shrimp kabobs, a lovely steak. All the meats (and the veggies, too...I see you, fajitas) become a quick and easy dinner when it's grilling season.
But the real dinner-time hero is this sauce. It doesn't look like much, and I couldn't tell you how to make it exactly the same way every time, but this is the sauce of the summer. It goes by many names: salsa verde, Columbian salsa, cilantro-lime sauce, or herby-green-sauce. Whatever you call it, and however you make it, it is a culinary all-star. It goes like this: olive oil (preferably Persian Lime Olive Oil), an entire bunch of cilantro, almost an entire package of green onions, a jalapeno (optional), a little sugar, salt, white vinegar, and lime juice.
To those of you already scrunching your nose, know this: I hate cilantro. I'm not a huge onion fan, either. But I adore this sauce. Its versatility will amaze you and the flavor combo is just right. Spoon it over herbed meatballs, add it to yellow curry, add a little more oil and use it as a salad dressing, use it as a marinade for grilled chicken or shrimp, drizzle it into lentil soup, or dollop it on top your cold Asian noodles. All you do is wash your cilantro and green onions, trim off the ends of both, and throw everything into a blender or food processor. Fiddle with it until you get the sweet/sour/savory balance you prefer and then make it again and again all summer long because it goes on everything. It's a little runnier than regular salsa, but not quite as thin as plain old oil/vinegar salad dressing. I'll leave you to experiment with it however you'd like. I trust your judgment.
Salsa Verde/Columbian Salsa
Recipe adapted from my amazing Mother in Law, Sydnie Kleinhenz
1 bunch cilantro, washed and ends slightly trimmed3/4 package of green onions/scallions, washed and ends trimmed
1/3 cup (or more) Persian Lime Olive Oil
1 jalapeno, seeded (optional)
1 1/2 tsp. (or more) white sugar
1 tsp. (or more) salt
1/4 cup (or more) distilled white vinegar (or wine vinegar or apple cider...whatever you have lying around, but probably not Balsamic, unless you omit the sugar)
Juice of 1/2 a lime (or a whole lime, if you like the acidity/don't use Persian Lime Olive Oil)
1. Wash the cilantro and green onions. Trim their ends. Cut the jalapeno in half and remove the seeds.
2. Throw all the ingredients into a food processor or blender. Blend it all together until mostly smooth. Taste for sweet/salty/savory balance and add more of the sugar, or salt, or vinegar until it tastes the way you want it. Keep it in the refrigerator (will keep for at least a week, if not longer) and use it often.
Well, that's pretty much it. Not too much to report. I'll try to keep you posted on the ins and outs of what's going on when the new harvest gets in. In the meantime, enjoy your summer and I'll see you soon!
Cheers,
Andrea
