We prune our olive trees in the Nudo grove when the winter rains stop, the days start to get longer and just before the sap rises. Between 5 and 10 of us prune for a week or so, if the weather holds that long. If bad weather means that progress is slow we don’t have time to take a proper lunch (a crime in Italy) and we’ll just eat a packed lunch of bread, cheese and wine under a tree. If the weather’s on our side and we’re trucking along we’ll treat ourselves to a feast up at the farmhouse, using oil that’s just a few months old, from the last harvest. For the first time this year we’ve made olive oil crushed with oranges. It’s not an infusion, we make it by crushing whole oranges with the olives in the press. It’s quite unusual. This is a recipe I’ll try on the boys next week, if the weather holds out.
Ingredients for 4 people
Penne pasta – 400g
Kalamata olives – 80g stoned and roughly chopped
Mascarpone – 200g
Orange oil – 3 tablespoons
Water from pasta – 150ml
Black pepper – freshly ground
Parmesan – 50g freshly grated
Cook the penne in boiling, salted water. While the pasta is cooking chop the olives and mix with the mascarpone. Add 150ml of the water the pasta is cooking in to the mascarpone. Also add the orange oil and black pepper and mix into a smooth paste.
When the pasta is ‘al dente’ drain and mix with the paste. Serve with a sprinkling of parmesan over the top.
