Some things don't need a recipe. They need the right ingredients.
I could eat this every day — not as an appetizer, not as a side. As a meal. A hunk of bread, a small ceramic bowl of olive oil, salt.
The olive oil matters here — when the oil is the point, there's nowhere to hide — you taste everything it is. The variety blend. The harvest time. The fact that it was pressed within hours of picking and never filtered.
Some things don't need a recipe.
Ingredients
- Tutto Sicilia Extra Virgin Olive Oil — enough to fill a small bowl generously
- Good bread — crusty as you like it
- Flaky sea salt
- A few cracks of black pepper (optional)
Instructions
- Pour olive oil into a small bowl. Don't be stingy.
- Add a pinch of flaky salt and a few cracks of black pepper if you like.
- Tear the bread.
- Dip.
- Smile.
Nonna's Notes
She didn't think about it. Oil on the table. Bread to tear. It was just what you did.
Sicilian olive oil from the Hyblaean Mountains has a particular character: intensely fruity, with a finish that's bright and complex and a little peppery at the back of the throat. That finish is a sign of quality. That's the polyphenols doing what polyphenols do.
You don't need to know any of that. You just need the bread.
This is the best way to understand an olive oil — by itself, with nothing competing. If it's good, you'll know. If it's not, you'll know that too.
This one is good.
This is the best way to understand an olive oil — by itself, with nothing competing. If it's good, you'll know.
