“Bring me some olives and I will make you a dinner!” This is what I was thinking this morning. Summer is here and it is hot. It’s a lazy summer for a lot of people and the most important mission is to go to the beach or the swimming pool. So perfect for a time like this is an easy-to-make recipe. And what better ingredient to use than olives? I hope you will enjoy my deep-fried stuffed olives with a delicious yogurt-ouzo-lemon dip!!

Olives

Olives are always an inspiration to me. My favourite moments in summer are when we cool off in the sea, but I also miss Autumn; the season that I dream of mostly, because that’s when we start picking olives again! It’s also the time that I stand around our olive trees with friends from all around the world and see the olives ready to be harvested. It’s my favourite time of the year; oh how much I love it!

Olive picking

I love the hours afterwards as much as the hours during olive picking. The moments that we are all tired from hard work and we gather around the fire in the open kitchen, open a nice bottle of local wine, and start cooking around the fire. We tell each other stories and talk freely about all kinds of things. It’s like Christmas without pressure and we feel like family. Some of us drink more than they cook! (do you know who I mean?).

Deep-fried stuffed olives

One of the things that I will surely prepare during our olive picking time are the deep-fried olives. I loved trying this recipe, especially during the cooking classes at Odyssey. I learned that you need a good tool for taking the seeds out of the olives, or to buy olives that have no seeds. We had huge fun during a cooking class with 2 men trying to take the seeds from the olives, as they ended up using all their arm strength for just a few pit-free olives!

Dip

In the first place I recommend stuffing your olives with feta, but red pepper is also a good option. Of course, the fried olives need a great dip to accompany it! Ouzo gives a great ‘kick’ to food and you know how much I love lemon, so I created the yoghurt-ouzo-lemon dip. Together they make an irresistible combination!

For the recipe of the deep-fried stuffed olives with ouzo dip I recommend this wonderful Nemea dry red wine from the Skouras Winery.

Photography: Annette Spaan

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