One of the things I love most about living in the West is the abundance of olive trees.
When I bought my little home on the doorstep of the West Gate Tunnel two and a half years ago, I knew immediately that I wanted to put in olive hedging. I was lucky to find a home with an enormous olive tree in the front yard, so now I truly have an abundance.
For the past two years those olives have been picked and carefully preserved by other friends in the West who have such skills. But this year, I wanted something different. I took the 10.5 kilograms of olives from my tree and dropped them in Newport, joining thousands more of the fruit collected by my neighbours. It was part of the Olives to Oil Festival by CERES, in which the community’s olive oil is pressed into one big, mega blend. After a few weeks, you get to go and pick up the community-blend olive oil. I think it cost me $5 for the glass bottles. I taste-tested it by making this dipping oil, using olives picked and preserved last year from my tree. I was very smug about it all.
You should serve this with fresh bread. I only had stale crackers but was still licking the pan. My oil may not be the finest quality in all the land and it is certainly not bright green like those oils you see in Italy. But it is mine, from my garden, picked by me and mixed with the best of my neighbour’s crops. And in that sense, it is liquid gold.
Ingredients:
- A very, very large glug of preferably homemade olive oil (but store bought is fine!)
- A large handful of parsley
- A large handful of pitted olives
- One large clove of garlic
- Slivered almonds
- Chilli flakes
- Focaccia to serve (or in my case, stale crackers!)
Method:
- Finely chop everything.
- On a low heat, add every ingredient in the pan and warm for a few minutes or until the garlic starts to colour.
- Remove from heat. Eat.
