Sausage and Olives

Sometimes, Italian food can be deceivingly simple. This is because our country is so rich in raw materials, food-wise speaking, that it’s quite easy to cook delicious stuff with a minimum of effort. The same cannot be said for many other countries where getting hold of fresh ingredients can be harder. Today’s recipe belongs to the “try this at home if you dare” category. It’s called, quite fittingly, “sausage and olives” because it’s, well, sausage and olives. [If we Italians had a tenth of the French disposition for inventing dish names…]

Apron-to-dish: 10 minutes; SoHo time: 10minutes.

For 2 servings:

3 sausage
200g, fresh olives.

Open the sausages along their length, flatten them and put in a pan ver medium heat. (No oil is needed.) As you can see, we are using sausage prepared “a punta di coltello” (at knife-tip), a somewhat old-fashioned way you can enjoy only from a butcher that still works meats, not a very common occurrence anywhere large chains have supplanted small shops.

The difference? Taste and quality. The taste is stronger, and more defined. Having to actually chew the sausage greatly improves the experience. As for quality, I’ll only say this: minced thin enough, you can turn anything into sausage.

A word about olives: they need to be fresh. And freshly-picked. Canned olives, or olives in brine simply won’t do. You have been warned.

Toss in the olives. Stir every now and then, and make sure to turn the sausage over a couple times (since they are thick, you’ll need to guarantee an even cooking to both sides.

When the sausage are cooked, so will the olives. You’ll notice how some olives may have gone all soft, potentially losing the pit. If they haven’t, never mind: the cooking time of the sausage is more than enough for the olives.