New Delhi, August 29 – Chef Ritu Dalmia along with Giuseppe Dibisceglia, director of Consortium for the quality standard protection of Table Olive launched a new variety of olives from Puglia, Italy at the Italian Cultural Centre in Delhi this week.
Known as La Bella della Daunia – variety Bella di Cerignola DOP, these olives are renowned for their size, taste, beauty and consistency of flesh. Easy to cook and healthy with a long shelf life, the olives make for an ideal condiment in snacks, digestive recipes, salads and cooked or uncooked seasonings.
“All I need is a jar of olives in my kitchen and it’s just a matter of minutes before I cook up an entire meal around them. They are so versatile and can easily be substituted in a number of dishes such as the pine nuts for pesto, peppers in pasta or marinades for fish and meat,” says Dalmia.
To commemorate the launch, she took the guests through a live cooking session where she put together various dishes using the special variety of olives. “Most of these dishes won’t take more than two minutes, that’s how simple and delicious it is to cook with olives,” she added.
Some of the dishes that guests were treated to included crostini with green olive pate, crostini with black olive pate, penne putanesca (pasta in tomato sauce) and aqua pazza (poached fish).
-INDIA TODAY
