Tapenade on tap & red onion marmalade
Here are two well-known crowd-pleasing dips you need in your ‘easy entertaining’ arsenal. We almost always make them together as their sweet / salty dynamic is truly fantastic… served with sourdough crostini and soft goat’s cheese we cannot help ourselves.
The tapenade is deeply savoury and umami thanks to a few anchovies, yet has a pop of acidity and a faintly perfumed quality from some fresh lemon juice and zest. The red onion marmalade is sweet, sticky and tangy and a true delight with almost any cheese.
These dips are very well suited to easy “do-ahead” hosting. Back in the days when one could host (sigh) we would have a large bowl of each out on the table ready to go, along with a stack of garlic toast, and a big pan of room temperature caponata (a sweet/sour tomato & aubergine stew) or roasted ratatouille topped with toasted pine nuts and zesty gremolata… Our guests then happily loaded up their crostinis and tucked in, as and when they liked.
Sharing these recipes today reminds us quite how much we miss hosting friends and family… long weekend lunches, thrown-together vegcentric weeknight suppers, or lavish dinner parties where we’d put much thought into the wine pairing and the deep-fried nibbles. We have a strange rule whereby we always deep-fry something in Katy’s fryer when friends come over..! Stuffed olives… halloumi fries… Thai crab cake croquettes… and even “corn dog tots” on Thanksgiving! These cheese croquettes with pineapple & scotch bonnet chutney have been rolled out many times!
But we digress. On to the recipes at hand!
These two recipes make a ‘party sized’ batch of 10-12 serves.
Method:
Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan or skillet over a medium heat. Saute the sliced onions for 25-30 minutes until they’re super soft and well caramelised; stir often to prevent them catching and burning.
Add the salt, sugar, rosemary and balsamic vinegar, and simmer very gently for a further 15-20 minutes until things look glossy and jammy.
Either store your marmalade in sterilised jars (notes below), or tip it into your chosen serving bowl. This marmalade is best served warm or at room temperature. Any left-overs will last for up to 4 weeks if kept in the fridge.
Ingredients for red onion marmalade:
4 tbsp olive oil
5 red onions, finely sliced into half moons (approx 550 g when prepped)
1 tsp flakey sea salt
5 tbsp / 75 g brown sugar
2-4 sprigs of rosemary, stripped and chopped
5 tbsp / 75 ml balsamic vinegar
Method:
Grate the garlic first, this allows you to leave more texture in the tapenade itself if you wish, and zest ½ of one of the lemons.
Add all the ingredients to a food processor or blender. Churn your tapenade until you’ve reached your desired consistency. We prefer it on the smoother side, but see what you like best.
Scrape the tapenade into a serving bowl and keep covered in the fridge: allow it to come to room temperature before serving. Any left-overs will last for up to 10 days if kept in the fridge.
Ingredients for tapenade:
320 g pitted black olives (2 small jars, drained)
2-3 cloves garlic
25 g anchovies (5 fillets)
2 lemons (juice of 2, zest of ½)
60 g / 4 tbsp olive oil
How to sterilise a jar:
Wash and rinse it well, then stand it in a preheated oven (140 degrees), for 10 minutes until bone dry. If the jar has a rubber seal remove this before you place it in the oven, and pour boiling water over the seal to sterilise.