One way to use and consume Olives, specifically Black Olives, is through their use in a snack. Such a snack is the Olive Pie. Olive Pie accompanies breakfast or afternoon tea or coffee. Olives as part of the Mediterranean diet and should be consumed on a daily basis as they appear in the lower, base, part of the Mediterranean pyramid.
Cypriots, inhabitants of Cyprus, consume olives in many forms and have incorporated Olives in many of their foods, cakes, snacks, salads and meals in general. One way to consume Olives is in the form of a delicious pastry snack, the Olive Pie.
The following is a recipe for a Cypriot style Olive Pie of which most of the ingredients are basic components of the Mediterranean diet.
Ingredients
2 glasses of chopped black, kernel -free, Olives
1 finely chopped onion
½ glass Olive Oil
½ glass Sun flower oil (if desired this can be replaced with another ½ glass of olive oil )
1Kg ( 2.2 lbs ) Plain Flour
3 tsp Baking Powder, BP
2 glasses of Orange Juice
1 bunch finely chopped coriander
2 Tb Dry Mint
Method
The preparation method is manual, so wash the hands thoroughly and let’s start.
Put the flour in a large bowl and mix it with the Baking Powder, BP.
In the center of the bowl pour the olive and sunflower oil.
Mix flour and oil together making dough
Add the Orange Juice
Mix (mash) well
Add the mint
Add the finely chopped coriander and keep mixing
Add the finely chopped onion
Finally add the chopped Olives
Mix and mash well all ingredients until you feel that the mixture is well “bonded’’.
Identify a round baking pan
Anoint the pan with olive oil
Afterwards put the well mixed dough in the pan
Put some olive oil on your hands and with the oily hands spread the dough in the pan so that that it would be evenly allocated in the pan.
Put the pan in a preheated oven of 175 Centigrade ( 350 F ) for about 40 minutes.
Remove from the oven, let the pie stand still outside the oven for about 20 minutes and then cut in regular pieces by incising parallel vertical and horizontal lines to form the square pieces.
Serve warm or cold as a snack for breakfast or an accompaniment of tea or coffee.
As observed from the recipe, all the ingredients used are basic components of the Mediterranean diet with the exception of sunflower oil. Sunflower oil was used to make the pie a bit lighter for people who are not accustomed to heavy usage of olive oil. If this is not the case then the sunflower oil should be replaced with olive oil but use ¾ of a glass Vs 1 full glass.
This kind of olive pie is made specifically in Cyprus and it is available and eaten all year round in houses, cafes, snack bars and restaurants.
Enjoy
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