FavorFlavs #32

We all have them: favorite flavors, ingredients and kitchen tools. FavorFlavs we keep reaching for again and again. These are ours.

Extra virgin olive oil

Baking with it is a waste. You’d be better off using butter for that. Or a more neutral oil with a higher smoke point than that of extra virgin olive oil.

But drizzling it over salad, over burrata cut into pieces with scissors, over bruschette with anchovies, grilled vegetables, bread, pizza or pasta—that’s what this liquid gold was made for.

There are many countries that produce olive oil. And in each of them you can find a perfectly good bottle or tin. For every dish, moreover—just as with wine—there is undoubtedly an ideal olive oil and food pairing. From grassy and peppery with spicy pastas to light and fresh with fish.

But we can’t do without the light green to greenish-yellow oil made from the small Taggiasca olive from the Northern Italian region of Liguria. Mainly because of its soft, fruity and sometimes even slightly briny flavor, with hints of almond if you taste very carefully.

And extra virgin olive oil is also packed with healthy antioxidants and monounsaturated fatty acids. That’s why we now also add a splash to our breakfast yogurt with nuts.

There is a lot of mediocre extra virgin olive oil for sale. Buy good oil at a specialty store. Such as Meeuwig & zn. in Amsterdam, Delice in The Hague and Foodelicious (also an online shop) in Rotterdam.