Lizzy's Ascolane Fried Olives

Bite size pieces of savory bliss - that's what fried stuffed olives are.

This recipe is particular to Ascoli Piceno where my great grandparents are from. I have been there twice now and they always serve up this speciality item.

My family usually has them for Christmas, but I was never really crazy about them until I tried them in Italy. And I loved them. Somehow being in another country, makes trying new things easier... I even learned to like fresh figs in Italy too.

So no one ever tells me when they are making the stuffed olives so I don't know how to make them properly but the Internet provided me with 2 decent recipes. (#1 and #2) which I altered to suit myself (took out the Parmesan cheese). I have heard that you have to cut the olive in a spiral to remove the pit and then you get a little ball of meat and wrap the spiral olive around the meat. So it returns to its olive shape and then you bread it and fry it. (You can read the recipes if you want more details.)

But when I actually opened the jar of olives to begin the process of cutting the olive like a spiral. I realized why everyone says, "It really hard work and its an all day project." NO JOKE. And when you don't have a decent knife around... well you have to cut some corners somewhere... or in this case cut some curves.

So I decided to follow through with an idea I had had before. I cut the olive off the pit. Put the olives in a food processor and diced them up a little then mixed the olive bits in with the meat concoction. Then preceded to bread them. I fried a couple to sample. And they were good! Not the same as the authentic Ascolane Olives but a nice twist (or lack of twist/spiral). It still took a good long time to cut up 80+/- olives, but certainly less time than spiral cutting them.

Perhaps next year I will have better knives to work with and I will try this recipe the traditional way... until then... the family can feast on Lizzy's Ascolane Fried Olives.