Green Olive Salad
March 14th, 2006
There are some recipes from Turkey that are known to be associated with Gaziantep, a big city in southeastern section of the country. The most famous of all is the baklava. All around the country you can find baklava shops that claim to serve “Gaziantep baklavasi” meaning “baklava from Gaziantep.” This recipe is also from that region, and was brought to my attention from a fellow food blogger Mine from Germany. The way she described and photographed the salad was so mouthwatering — that is, if you like green olives to start with. She took the recipe from a cookbook written in German. I happen to have a “food from Gaziantep region” book at hand as well and the given recipe was exactly the same, so without any hesitation I set off to try this recipe over the weekend. We grow all the greens used as ingredients which made it really easy for me to find the green garlic stalks. Otherwise, I am not sure if one can buy them in the markets in US. Maybe the farmer’s markets?
If you like green olives and bitter food, you might enjoy this recipe, too.
Ingredients:
1. 250 gr pitted green olives
2. 4 stalks of green oninons
3. 3 stalks of green garlic
4. a bunch of parsley
5. about 1/2 cup of roughly chopped walnuts
6. 1 - 2 Tbs pomegranate concentrate (available in Middle Eastern Stores)
7. olive oil
8. Salt, red pepper to taste
Finely chop the green olives, onions, garlic and parsley. Roughly chop the walnuts. Mix them well, add salt and red pepper to taste. Add pomegranate concentrate and olive oil and mix well. Cover and chill in the fridge for about 2 hours. Serve along your favourite food. Decorate with pomegranate seeds and enjoy!
Since pomegranate concentrate is used as a souring agent, if you have trouble finding it you can try substituting with lemon juice. They taste very different but can do the job. One makes the pomegranate concentrate by boiling the pomegranate juice down. Beware of the “fake” concentrates that you might find in the stores.
March 18th, 2006 at 7:32 am
This looks like a wonderful salad! It would be worth growing the garlic just to get the tops to use in the recipe (which I will do this spring!). So I would just ask for pomegranite concentrate? Is it in a jar or a bottle? Does it need refrigeration? Thank you. Looks delicious.
March 19th, 2006 at 11:45 pm
Fran, you can try it without garlic, first. I must say that garlic is very powerful for this salad but definitely works fine. I think you need to start growing garlic in fall so it goes through winter so you can harvest these days. That also depends on where you live. :) The pomegranate concentrate usually comes in a bottle — think about it like a very thick pomegranate juice. Does not need refrigeration — at least the one I have which was homemade by someone we know.
March 21st, 2006 at 12:03 pm
Thak you for the information. Will check 2 nearby markets for the pomegranite concentrate. You are right about the garlic. Wasn’t thinking. Maybe for a taste in the same family I could use some fresh chives. You have a wonderful site.
March 25th, 2006 at 1:54 am
Amazing salad, seen nothing like it before.. Thanks for sharing
June 5th, 2006 at 9:32 am
They had fresh young green almonds at The Berkeley Bowl (Shattuck Av in Berkeley California) a couple weeks ago, although I don’t know if they still have them…
If only they had regular almonds that taste as good as the ones i had when i was in Morocco a couple years ago.
December 13th, 2006 at 9:16 am
Excellent salad which i remember from my youth in Gaziantep.
But I am very much inetrested in the book about Gaziantep food you mentioned. Could you please inform about title, writer, etc. so i can try to find it. thanks.
December 16th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
Mehmet, the book I mentioned is called “Gaziantep Yemekleri” published by Gaziantep Valiligi. We bought it there, while visiting the Mosaic Museum. After that I have found out that the same recipes (word by word copies) can be found online (http://www.mustafatasar.gen.tr/gaziantep/antep_yemek/index.htm) as well. I hope you will get to try out some of the old-time recipes for you.