Chasing Liquid Gold

on edible fats... & an authentic Italian family focaccia recipe

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Hi lovely matcha mates! I’m back from living in Italy for four months and I’m itching to tell you about one of my favorite places on earth…Tuscany. So let’s start there shall we?

morning matcha with a lil tuscan sun

The Playlist: a tuscan summer

Make yourself an iced strawberry aloe matcha, press play, and read on!

The Story: finding liquid gold in Tuscany

It’s a searingly sunny 90 degree day in Tuscany and all I’m thinking about is fat.

I had just finished off a juicy Dario Cecchini grilled beef belly panini and was ready to take a bite out of a very luscious piece of olive oil cake. It was fat followed by more fat. And it was pure bliss.

Getting fats ready for us to eat is hard work. Olives have to be pressed into olive oil, milk has to be churned into butter, and animals have to be raised for the fatty cuts. It’s not like acid, another equally important element of cooking according to Samin Nosrat, which can be readily squeezed from a lime. Fat works hard in our cooking. And that’s what makes it my desert island ingredient.

a wondrously fat-packed lunch with a view 😏

Lucky for me, Tuscany is known for a famous form of edible fat — liquid gold, aka olive oil. I somehow convinced my family to geek out about olives with me and visit a family-run olive oil farm for a tasting tour and a very generous “light lunch” (where I also learned their secret focaccia recipe, more on that later!). 

Let me share a little bit of what I learned about liquid gold…

About the farm

Pornanino Olive Oil farm is nestled among the sloping hills of Chianti, run by the lovely couple, Matteo and Francesca. Matteo is originally from Milan in the Lombardy region where butter is the fat of choice over olive oil (think creamy risottos!). What’s interesting is that his gut health changed for the better when he switched over to olive oil after moving to be on Francesca’s family farm in Tuscany. No wonder there are some who religiously drink olive oil shots every day!

Types of olive oils

• Extra Virgin Olive Oil: We see EVOO everywhere thanks to the plethora of brands in the US that tout “extra virgin olive oil” labels, though they’re not all made equal. Globally, the requirement is for the oil’s acidity to be less than 0.8%. However, it’s not uncommon to find old EVOO on supermarket shelves which negates any desirable acidity levels. A decent fresh EVOO is preferable over the highest quality EVOO gone rancid. Additionally, some manufacturers also add green food colorant to help falsely improve appearance.

• Virgin Olive Oil: The acidity profile falls between 0.8% and 2.0%

• Lamp Oil: As toxic as it sounds, this quality of olive oil is only suitable to be used as biofuel and not for human consumption.

• Read on at USDA olive oil guidelines and International Olive Oil Council guidelines

First cold pressed vs cold pressed

The difference between the two is that the former uses a traditional stone mill to ensure that no heat is introduced during the processing stage. The latter refers to the hydraulic press method that many industrial olive oil producers rely on which unintentionally produces heat during the process because it is much rougher and faster. More heat means more oxidation which means less antioxidants and nutritional value.

Filtering

Matteo, the olive oil farmer, recommends against filtered olive oil because this usually means some kind of solvent was mixed in to remove “impurities” which are really just completely edible remnants of the olive fruit. Natural olive oil, much like raw honey, is not crystal clear and that’s perfectly ok.

From fruit to bottle

1. Olives are harvested near the end of October and November. Half of the olives will be ripe (black) and the other half will still be green. The farm is home to four different heritage olive tree varieties, all of which are pressed into the same blend. This is a contrast from the industrial olive tree farms which only grow one type of olive breed for yield efficiency at the loss of biodiversity.

   

2. The olives are separated from their leaves and washed.

3. Using a traditional stone mill, the olives are gently crushed (the pits too! no waste left behind) into a paste.

4. The paste is spread onto doughnut shaped nylon mats which are then mounted onto a pole to be compressed.

   

   the stonemill and compression rod - oh so grandiose!

5. The oil is collected and sent through a centrifuge to separate “green water”, aka any chlorophyll or plant material, from the oil. What I love about Matteo’s farm is that the “green water” is put back onto the soil as natural fertilizer.

6. The oil is then bottled to ship to olive oil lovers all over the world. Sometimes Matteo will make his own infusions with truffle or peperoncino.

So what does it taste like?

The first spoonful of Matteo’s EVOO left an unforgettable tingling at the back of my throat. It almost felt spicy even though it was so smooth. I was caught off guard, and for a second wondered if his olive oil had actually gone bad! Fortunately, the tingly spiciness is an indicator of a high quality olive oil. We are so used to bland, almost rancid olive oils that fresh olive oil not only tastes different, it feels different.

A Tuscan lunch

Francesca’s culinary skills really shined through when they wowed us with a “light lunch”: tomato and eggplant bruschetta followed by a meat & cheese plate followed by a ricotta biscuit dessert. And the highlight? Her oven-fresh, golden, fluffy-on-the-inside, crispy-on-the-outside focaccia bread (sadly I really don’t have any good photos of it because our phones did not eat first in this case). Every dish highlighted the richness of their olive oil, and I fell in love with forever chasing liquid gold.

The Recipe: Francesca’s Focaccia

A very special family focaccia recipe from Francesca herself!

• 300 gr all purpose flour

• 240 gr water

• 10 gr salt

• 2 table spoons EVOO

• 10 gr fresh yeast or 3 gr dried yeast

Dissolve the yeast into the water,  when done add the EVOO.

Add the salt to the flour and start adding the water+yeast. Keep stirring with a fork until all the water is well absorbed.

Cover the bowl with cling film and wait until the dough has doubled its volume  (approx 2h)

Prepare a baking tray by adding a generous glug of olive oil to grease. Pour the dough and spread it with your hands. You will notice the dough is rather sticky, which is why you can use olive oil on your hands to spread it in the baking tray.

Let it rise for 30 minutes more. Spread with dried oregano/coarse salt/rosemary and put into the oven, which you have already heated at 390F, for 15 minutes. Enjoy!

I loved the focaccia so much, I made it for a dinner party back home… with an extra bottle of olive oil to serve on the table of course:)

Where will your hunt for fatty flavor take you next?

cheers,

Kelly

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