Herbed Olive Oil

In honor of St. Patrick's day this week, the theme at I Heart Cooking Clubs is Go Green.  I wanted to make something that I can definitely use in my kitchen and that would be herbed olive oil.  I chose this recipe from Tessa Kiros' cookbook Twelve, A Tuscan Cook Book.  In Tuscany they call it Smicca; olive oil infused with fresh rosemary, sage and garlic.

Tessa suggests that it is worth making a large amount as it keeps for a long time if the herbs remain covered with the oil.  Since it is only Lovey and myself at home, I halved the recipe (as I do with so many these days).  Smear it all over a nice chicken for roasting and you can jazz up your roasted potatoes as well by giving them a nice toss with the oil before placing them in the oven.  Spread some of the oil mixed with diced tomatoes on some toasted ciabatta bread for a nice bruschette.  You can get really creative with this stuff.

Wash your rosemary and sage and leave to dry overnight on some paper towels.

Remove the leaves from the rosemary sprigs and remove any tough stalks from the sage sprigs.  Peel your garlic and coarsely chop (if you go the blender route).  Drop them into your blender and pulse-chop.  My blender didn't do as good a job as I would have liked on the rosemary leaves but it chopped most of them fine and the leaves left whole were at least bruised and beat up enough to release their essence.  If you do this by hand, chop them very finely.

I put my herbs in a Mason jar (because I love storing all things in Mason jars) and added a good pinch of salt.

Add a good quality olive oil and stir it up.  Let it settle overnight then check to make sure all of the herbs are still covered.

Store in a cool, dark place or in the refrigerator.  I'm keeping mine on my pantry shelf with it's cousins.

Smicca - Herbed Olive Oil
From Twelve by Tessa Kiros
Makes 1litre (4 cups)

Ingredients:
4-1/2 ounces rosemary sprigs
3-1/2 ounces sage sprigs
4 garlic cloves garlic
about 3 cups olive oil

Mise en Place:

• rinse rosemary and sage and allow to dry, preferably overnight
• strip leaves from rosemary and sage sprigs
• peel garlic
• measure olive oil

Method:
Chop the sage, rosemary leaves and the garlic very finely by hand, or pulse-chop in a blender.  Place in a jar, lightly salt and cover with oil.  Stir through.  Leave it overnight to settle, then check that the herbs are completely covered with oil.  Add a little more oil if necessary.  Store in a closed jar in a cool, dark place or in the refrigerator.  This will keep for several months - just keep topping it up with olive oil.

I'm sharing this at IHCC