Olive All’Ascolana (Stuffed Olives)

These fried olives, stuffed with three kinds of meat and cheese, are scrumptious. You can serve them alone as a starter or with a salad and some cold meat as a light lunch. Here I’ve served them with crunchy radishes, parsley pesto and capocollo – if you can’t find capocollo you can use ham or any other cold slices.

Recipe: Olive All’Ascolana

Ingredients:

• 32-35 large green olives (‘olive in calce’ – big fat, shiny, green olives)
• 150 grams chicken breast
• 150 grams pork (pork chop or a slice of shoulder pork)
• 120 grams mortadella
• 1 clove garlic (peeled and halved)
• sprig of rosemary
• lemon zest (from 1 lemon)
• grated nutmeg (1/2 teaspoon)
• grated pecorino (a generous handful…about 80 grams)
• salt & pepper
• 1 egg to bind the meat mix
• 2 eggs to coat the meatballs
• flour
• fine breadcrumbs

Method:

Peel the olives as close to the stone as possible. Be careful to keep them in one piece…like a spiral.
Put some oil, garlic and rosemary into a frying pan and cook about 150 grams each of chicken and pork.
Mince the cooked meat either in a mincer or by hand with 150 grams mortadella. Add a beaten egg, lemon zest, grated nutmeg and a big handful of grated pecorino, salt and pepper. Mix together and then form little balls. Carefully wrap the olive spirals around the meatballs. Dip them first in flour, then beaten egg and finally in fine breadcrumbs. Deep fry them in peanut oil until golden brown (I use a wok). If you run out of olives just dip the meatballs in flour, egg and breadcrumb and deep fry them in the same way. Buon appetito😍