WHITE GARLIC SOUP WITH GRAPES

This is a great chilled soup to serve on a hot summer’s day before some of the other dishes listed this month. It comes from the Vano family who grow olives on their estate in the Sierra Magina region of Jaen to press for their excellent Dominus extra virgin olive oil. You may need to experiment to find the right level of garlic for you.
Sufficient for 4 people
Ingredients:
250 g raw almonds
peeled cloves of fresh garlic to taste
150 g bread crumbs
500 g muscatel grapes
1 soup spoonful of Sherry vinegar
150m; “Dominus” Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 litre very cold water

Method:
Place the almonds in boiling water for two minutes to loosen their peel. Drain and peel them using a clean cloth.
Peel the cloves garlic.
Peel the grapes and remove the pips.
Crush the almonds, garlic, breadcrumbs and salt together in a mortar (or in a blender).
Stir the resulting mixture little by little, slowly adding the extra virgin olive oil until it forms a thick emulsion.
Add the vinegar, continue stirring a little longer and add the cold water.
Keep refrigerated until serving.
Before serving, try the mixture, adding salt or vinegar if necessary, then add the grapes and serve very cold.

TUNA WITH OLIVES

This well flavoured fish works well with this delicious treatment from Spain. The Vano’s recommend striped tuna. Make sure that you buy good quality artisan produced olives – not the usual pimento-stuffed olives in jars on the supermarket shelves.

Sufficient for 4 people:
Imgredients:
750 g tuna
250 ml “Dominus” Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 glass of white wine
1 soup spoon of white wine vinegar
3 cloves garlic
4 small sprigs of parsley
1 small sprig of thyme
150 g de-stoned green olives
Ground white pepper
Flour
Salt

Method:
Clean the tuna and cut into fillets. Leave them to macerate in a mixture of the oil, wine, vinegar, garlic and chopped parsley, with a little pepper and salt. Leave for one hour.
After this time has past take the fillets out of the mixture, drain and coat in flour.
Chop up the olives, add them to the marinade and cook this over a low flame until only half the sauce is left.
Meanwhile fry the fillets in hot oil, then place them on absorbent paper so that they drain, and then place them in a dish. Pour the boiling sauce over them before serving.

SARDINES IN LEOM SAMFAINA

Samfaina is a sauce from the East coast of Spain. It has similarities to French Ratatouille and is rather like a chunky vegetable stew. The recipe comes from head chef Gareth Howard curtsey of Gwyn Jones producer of Ferranti extra virgin olive oil. Gareth has given the recipe a real lemony feel to offset the rich sardine taste. He uses Ferranti early harvest extra virgin olive oil because it has a robust and natural peppery flavour which compliments the natural seasoning of the sardines.

Ingredients:
4 large sardines filleted
Plain flour for dusting
Lemon wedges to serve
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

For the samfaina
1 large aubergine
5 tbsp Ferranti early harvest extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 large courgette, finely sliced
1 red and 1 green bell pepper, de-seeded and cut into squares
800g ripe sweet tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 bay leaf
Zest of 1 lemon
Salt and black pepper

Ingredients:
To make the sauce, peel the aubergine and cut into cubes. Sprinkle with salt and leave for 30 mins. Heat the oil in a flameproof pot large enough to fit the fish. Fry the onion until slightly brown, then add the garlic, peppers and courgette. Fry for a few minutes, add the tomatoes and bay leaf and simmer over a low heat until the tomatoes soften.
Wash the aubergines of salt and fry until brown in a separate frying pan. Add these to the tomato sauce. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan until really hot.
Flour the skins of the sardines and fry them for a few minutes each side or until golden. Transfer to the sauce and simmer for a further 5 minutes.
Finally, sprinkle in the lemon zest. Serve hot or cold with fresh lemon.

Chefs tip. You can add 10-15 saffron threads infused in a little hot water to the sauce to give it a new rich colour and authentic Mediterranean taste!