Having homemade healthy dips, sauces, and spreads in the fridge is really useful, particularly when you're coming home late and you're hungry and tired after a long day at the office. Classic French tapenade is made from olives, capers, anchovies, and olive oil, but we like to twist things around, so here is a vegan recipe that uses delicious dried pine mushrooms and a few black olives. Making this chunky wild mushroom and olive tapenade is very quick and easy, and you can store it in a glass jar in the fridge until it's all gone. Enjoy it with warm bread as a sandwich spread, use it as a dip, or stuff it in vegetables for a flavorful delight—but make sure you use finely chopped fresh herbs, it will really make a difference!
STEP 1: Gather the ingredients
- 3 cups of dry pine mushrooms (or porcini mushrooms)
- 2 garlic cloves
- 3 tbsp of fresh rosemary
- 1/4 cup of black olives
- Juice from half a lemon
- A pinch of ginger
- 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
STEP 2: Rehydrate mushrooms
Simply add the dried pine mushrooms into a bowl full of hot (not boiling) water and wait for about 20 minutes stirring occasionally. Drain the water and chop. Remember that dried mushrooms increase in volume 3 to 4 times, so only make the amount you will need.
Note: Dried mushrooms are much more flavorful than their freshly picked counterparts
STEP 3: Chop the garlic
This is a low-tech chunky recipe so make sure you chop the garlic into tiny pieces—we will not use a blender this time.
STEP 4: Chop the rosemary
Chop the rosemary or any other fresh herb you might have in the garden or growing on your windowsill. You could also use thyme as it goes very well with mushrooms.
STEP 5: Chop the olives
Add black salted olives to the mix and you won’t need any salt.
STEP 6: Grate some ginger
A pinch of grated ginger will enhance the mushrooms flavor while also giving the mix a fragrant edge.
STEP 7: Juice your lemon
The juice of half lemon will give the tapenade a fresh acidic taste. If you want, you can also zest some lemon for a sweeter flavor.
STEP 8: Mix it all together
Place the chopped mushrooms, garlic, rosemary, olives, lemon and ginger in a bowl and let the juices mix. Enjoy this yummy mushrooms tapenade on toasts, use it for stuffing vegetables, add it to a sandwich as spread or store it in the fridge inside a glass container for later—it will taste even better the next day!
Photos by Ana Lisa Alperovich for Inhabitat
