Most people are aware that cooking with olive oil is perfectly ok, but when they think of cooking with olive oil they are normally imagining frying something in olive oil. Recently Greenleaf Olive Company tasked chef Philip Arno Botes of Pure restaurant at Hout Bay Manor to develop a multi-course menu using olive oil in the actual dishes.
We were invited to attend the lunch showcasing the menu and we were absolutely blown away. It was our first visit to Hout Bay Manor and Pure restaurant, a perfect venue for this special event. The menu was creative and accomplished, each dish using olive oil in an unusual way. Chef Philip used different oils to take advantage of their different flavour profiles in the various dishes. Greenleaf supplied a selection of single olive varieties which had been freshly pressed from the harvest and would at a later stage be blended together to form either the Greenleaf extra virgin olive oil or the Sebastion Bay extra virgin olive oil which is more intense.
Below are the courses with descriptions. Not only did they look amazing, they tasted fantastic. The dessert was so good they are putting it on the menu at Pure Restaurant permanently. Even the welcome cocktail was made using olive oil!
Before we started eating we did a tasting of the individual oils to get an understanding of the different flavours, making it easier to identify them in the actual dishes. The varieties we tried were Barnea (delicate), Picual (medium) and Coratina (robust).
It was a most impressive event in every way. We recommend a visit to Pure Restaurant and if they have this dessert on the menu, do order it! Pure Restaurant uses Greenleaf olive oil which has been specially packaged for them. Start your meal but dunking some bread into the delicious fresh oil provided on the tables.
Thanks to the Greenleaf Olive Company for a most excellent event.
Green Leaf Martini
This zesty vodka, vermouth and triple sec based drink used Arbiquina olive oil to supplement an already strong flavour profile consisting of orange, grapefruit and fresh basil.
Bread and Butter
This dish was a delightful pairing of various breads with dollops of balsamic gel, pancetta, homemade cheese and Greek yoghurt. Olive bread was featured, with black olive paste being mixed directly into the dough, as well as Saint Sebastian infused olive butter and an olive sponge made with another olive paste.
Taste of Tuscany
A dish focused on seafood, but held together by creative uses of various olive oil cultivars. The tuna tartar was bound with and the grilled octopus slow cooked in Coratina olive oil. The grilled halibut was seared in Koroeiki olive oil, while the basil leaves were deep fried in Greenleaf EVOO. This dish was rounded off with a selection of caper berries, sundried tomatoes, toasted pine nuts, micro leaves, lemon pepper pearls and trout caviar.
Walk-a-bout Beef
A hearty serving of seared Kobe beef, basted with Picual olive oil, oxtail confit, quail breast and potato chips fried in Greenleaf EVOO. This was accompanied by a quail egg yolk crumb, fried in olive oil, truffle pearls, litchi aioli gel emulsified with Greenleaf EVOO and a duck liver gel which used Saint Sebastian olive oil instead of butter.
Potpourri Noodle, Tang Sorbet
A highly creative dessert course, this citrus based dish featured noodles crafted from olive oil, hibiscus and almonds and a sorbet made from tangerine and olive oil. This was topped with a tower of Golden Rose pearls.
Olive Glass
This olive heavy dish featured Koroneiki olive oil ice cream topped with almond praline and phyllo pasty, both brushed with Barnea olive oil, an olive oil fennel jelly, lemon parfait with a hint of tonka bean and olive, as well as an olive oil cake. This sat on a bed of fennel and olive oil crunch, and was rounded off with a shard of olive oil ‘glass’. This creation was then garnished with fresh fennel sprigs and fennel bulb confit to create a marvelously complex and flavourful dish.
The Friandise
A delectable chocolate ganache with olive oil truffle, paired with raspberry and red pepper jelly, orange segments and dusted in an imaginative olive oil ‘snow’.
See the full album of photos from the lunch here.
- London International Olive oil Competitions 2018 - December 15, 2017
- 3 Chocolate & Olive Oil Recipes For Heart Health - December 8, 2017
- 10 Awesome Local Olive Oil Packaging Designs - November 24, 2017