Kalamata Olives Palmiers

Recently, I bought a jar of tapenade from the supermarket and I was severely underwhelmed by the quality. I had them with bread sticks, on bread rolls, but it was rather bland. I remember that I made a tapenade with capers and sundried tomatoes that I brought to my friends' Jennifer's dinner party last year. Traditionally tapenades may contain anchovies, and since Jennifer is a vegetarian I had to improvise. And what a great result.

I have always enjoyed olives, even as a kid. Back in Malaysia, we would only find green ones, stuffed with pimentos. Black olives were always the rubbery and slightly tasteless yet bitter at the same time. But these Kalamata olives are just the best you would ever taste. Peloponnesian olives are generally of very good quality. What a great ingredient to use to make my own tapenade.

The palmiers came about after watching an episode of Baking Made Easy with Lorraine Pascale. I remembered having a few sweet sugary palmiers when I was in Paris earlier this year, and I really liked the idea of having a few savoury ones with some wine or a chilled glass of beer. You can make your own puff pastry, but ready rolled store-bought pastry works great too.

Ingredients:

Puff pastry, rolled into a big rectangle.

Tapenade

300g of kalamata olives, pitted

20-30g of capers (It is salty, so use less or more according to taste)

100g of sundried tomatoes.

1 tsp of dried oregano

A few tablespoons of olive oil

1 egg, beaten (for eggwash)

Preparation:

1. Make the tapenade. You can blend it, but I used my mezzaluna and chopped the olives, capers and sundried tomatoes.

2. Transfer the chopped ingredients into a bowl and add the oregano and olive oil and mix until a smooth consistency.

3. Spread out a layer of the tapenade onto the puff pastry.
4. Starting from one of the long edges, roll the pastry tightly to the centre and then repeat on the other side.
5. Cover the pastry roll in baking paper. Chill in the fridge for at least 45 minutes. If you are short of time, 20 minutes in the freezer works fine too.
6. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Also, prep a baking tray with baking parchment.
7. Lightly flour your knife, and slice the pastry roll into 1cm slices.

8. Arrange the slices on the tray, leaving enough space for the pastry to expand while it cooks.
9. Lightly brush a bit of eggwash on each slice.
10. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until its crisp and golden.
11. Remove and you can let cool on a wire rack.
12. Serve!

My dinner, the night I made the palmiers.