Tapenade

So what with all the stodge I had on our menu, I needed something a bit lighter for our guests.  And what better than some tapenade.  I started off by using Peter Gordon's recipe in The Cook's Book.  Luckily, before starting my prep I decided to check what the inestimable French Provincial Cooking had to say on the matter.  In her recipe for ouefs dur en tapénade she recommends adding lemon juice, a drop of sherry and a bit of mustard to the basic ingredients of black olives, anchovies, capers, garlic and olive oil.  By bastardising both recipes, I ended with an ingredients list that looked like this

• Black olives, pitted - 180g
• Salted anchovy fillet, rinsed - 2
• Salted capers, rinsed - 2tsp
• Garlic clove - 1
• Olive oil - 80ml
• Juice of ½ lemon
• Dijon mustard - 1tsp

Basically, combine all the ingredients, except the oil, mustard and lemon juice, together in either a mortar, or in a food processor.  I was lazy and mortar wasn't big enough so I went for the food processor option.  Then slowly drizzle in the olive oil until you have a thick paste. Then stir in the mustard and lemon juice.  And there we have it, tapenade.  One suggestion try it before adding in the mustard and lemon and then afterwards, the improvements these two flavours add is fantastic.  I didn't have any sherry, so didn't add any.  I served this on slices of baguette.  Makes 300g.