The sizzle of frying, the aroma that begins to spread in the kitchen, the wonder of the first bite: it is impossible to resist and stop at just one taste! Did you know that this delicious fried food gives its best together with many other delicacies in the Ascoli paper cone? Olive Ascolane Dolci Fritte are among the most characteristic dishes of the Marche cuisine, prepared strictly with green olives of the Tenera Ascolana del Piceno Dop variety in brine. An olive, also called San Francesco olive or simply Ascolana, which already boasted many illustrious admirers in the times of ancient Rome.
Origin and Tradition
In origin, the filling was prepared with wild herbs, soon replaced with a mix of meats, generally recovered from roasts or boiled meats cooked the day before. The first recipes date back to the end of the nineteenth century, when the cooks of the noble families of Ascoli began to stuff their olives, grown in the manor farms. As with many traditional recipes, each family is jealous of its version. In Benedetta's family, frying is an art. And what's better than preparing and eating crispy and tasty Ascoli olives together?
The Traditional Recipe: Olive Ascolane
To make the real Ascoli olives you need the sweet whole green olives suitable, which here in Verona I have not found. I could have bought giant olives in whole brine, but I thought that not replicating the traditional recipe I could also take the freedom to facilitate the work with the olives already pitted.
Ingredients and Preparation
Reducing the meat into very small cubes and adding them to the sauté, together with the bay leaf, grated lemon zest, nutmeg, ground pepper and salt (a little); mixing and deglazing with the white wine until it evaporates completely. Eliminating the bay leaf and blending the meat for a long time in a food processor equipped with blades (cutter), then transferring everything to a bowl and combining the egg and grated cheese. If the dough should be a little soft, you can add more grated cheese but do not overdo it. Kneading the ingredients for 10 minutes and then cooling everything in the refrigerator in a container with a lid. In the meantime, pitting the olives: starting from the end connected to the stalk and cutting the olive in a helix, as if peeling an apple without ever breaking the pulp, keeping close to the core.
Benedetta's Secret: Double Breadcrumbs
The first thing to do is clean the olives. To prevent the cleaned olives from blackening, put them immediately in a container with cold water and a little dissolved salt. For the filling of the Ascoli olives we use three types of minced meat: beef, pork and chicken. We make a sauté with onion, carrot and celery, we brown the meat and then blend the cooked meat so as to obtain a kind of pâté.
Leggi anche: Sapori Mediterranei in un Piatto
Here we are finally arrived at the secret of Benedetta's Ascoli olives: the double breadcrumbs. We pass the olives first in the flour, then in the egg and finally in the breadcrumbs. Then a second time in the egg and in the breadcrumbs.
Frying
Last tip: if we do not have a thermometer to measure the temperature of the sunflower oil - which for frying must be between 170 ° and 180 ° - we use a toothpick. Immerse it in the oil and, when bubbles form around it, carefully throw in the Ascoli olives. I advise you to consume the Ascoli olives at the moment, so as to preserve the crispness of the frying.
A Variation: Olive Ripiene di Tonno (Tuna-Stuffed Olives)
They look very much like Ascoli olives but at the first bite the difference will be clear: these are olives stuffed with tuna in oil and capers! Perfect for an aperitif, they can be a tasty appetizer, they are liked by adults and children. I love Ascoli olives, and the best, needless to say, I ate them walking around Ascoli with a paper cone in hand from which one after another, these delights have enlivened the walk through the wonderful city. This version, more easy and quick, prepared with tuna, comes from my love for this recipe.
Ingredients and Preparation for Tuna-Stuffed Olives
Some precautions for making tuna-stuffed olives: The choice of olives is important. They must be firm. If they are in brine it is better to keep them soaked for an hour changing the water a few times, this to prevent the result is excessively salty. To make the filling it is important to choose a good quality tuna.
Drain the Auriga Tuna and put it in a bowl, work it with a fork. Chop the parsley, capers and garlic and add them to the tuna. Also add the pecorino cheese. Beat an egg and add about half to the tuna. (keep the rest for the breadcrumbs). Mix the filling well, cut the olive and fill it with tuna with your hands. Pass the tuna-stuffed olives first in the flour, then in the egg and finally in the breadcrumbs. Fry a little at a time in a small pan for immersion until they are a beautiful orange color.
Leggi anche: Esplosione di Sapori: Pasta Ricotta
Serving Suggestions
Do you like the combination of tuna and olives? I then propose a first course that I always like: pasta with tuna, capers, olives, dried tomatoes and peppers.
Other Variations and Serving Suggestions
Depending on your tastes, the filling of the traditional recipe can also be enriched with ham, salami, mortadella, lemon zest and breadcrumbs soaked in broth or milk; among the meats some add the livers sautéed with a couple of slices of lard. The filling can also be based on chicken, pork and sometimes lamb.
To pit the olives, use a smooth, sharp and thin-bladed knife so as to remove the pulp without breaking it and form spiral strips. To bring these delicious olives to the table, small to medium in size and with a peculiar sweet-bitter aftertaste, simply pour them into an iron pan with a bottom of garlic and oil and a pinch of salt, and then let them cook for about 15 minutes, or until the pulp is soft and slightly undone. Once ready, you can serve them as an appetizer or aperitif together with a bowl of taralli and a good local red wine, or you can use them in the kitchen to enrich a plate of pasta or appetizing seasonal salads.
Tips and Tricks
Being a preparation based on few and simple ingredients, it will be essential to choose raw materials of excellent quality, starting from extra virgin olive oil. If you like spicy flavors you can add dried crumbled chilli to the sauté, you can add, as foreseen by some variations, some cherry tomatoes in wedges, or you can cook the olives simply in the oven without adding condiments: they will be excellent "spread" on fragrant friselle with a drizzle of raw oil. Some schools of thought argue that the olives should not be washed but rubbed with a clean cotton cloth, as we did, however, if you prefer, you can pass them under a jet of running water and then dab them carefully with a sheet of kitchen paper.
Olive Dolci Fritte (Sweet Fried Olives)
Discover how to prepare sweet fried olives following step by step procedure and tips.
Leggi anche: Pasta Fredda Estiva
Preparation
- Eliminate the olives bruised or damaged
- Rub them gently with a clean cotton cloth
- Pour the olives
- Add the salt in flakes
- When the olives are soft and slightly withered, turn off the heat. Transfer the sweet fried olives on a serving dish, bring to the table and serve.
Conservation
The sweet fried olives are kept in the fridge, in an airtight jar, for 3-4 days maximum.
Cremini Fritti all’Ascolana
Cremini fritti all’ascolana are fried cream morsels wrapped in breadcrumbs; they are proposed with the fried food, as an appetizer, second course or at the end of the meal instead of dessert. At Easter lunch it is customary to eat lamb as a second course (typical of Teramo) and fried food (typical of Ascoli), in which cremini and Ascoli olives are served among others. As I have already written in other recipes, I live on the border between Abruzzo and Marche. Here the cuisine mixes between the various traditions and flavors that distinguish these two regions; it is easy to find on the table different dishes that are typical of Ascoli and Teramo.