Olive paste snack

Olive paste served with tarelli or grissini makes a great snack, but if you have got 10 minutes to spare you may impress family and friends with a plate of ‘homemade’ snail snacks or 'sfogliatine con pesto di olive'.

The snack can be prepared from frozen puff pastry and ready-made olive pesto, and no one will be able to tell the difference, but why take short-cuts if you like to run a marathon? Both pastry and olive paste can be made from scratch, providing at least an hour’s free entertainment in the kitchen.

Ingredients:
For the pastry
1 packet of frozen puff pastry
or
3 dl flour
100 g cold butter
1 egg
Salt

For the filling
1 glas of Italian olive pesto
or
150 g black olives
1 dl olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp capers
2 anchovies
4 cloves of garlic
1 small pepperoncino chili
1 spring of fresh rosemary
1 spring of fresh sage
1 spring of fresh thyme

Preparation
Mix flour with a little salt.
Cut the butter into the flour and mix till it resembles fresh bread crumbs
Make the butter and flour into a dough with the egg, adding a little water if necessary.
Place the dough in a plastic bag and leave it in the refrigerator, while you prepare the olive paste.

Remove stones from the olives. (Most black pitted olives contain colouring chemicals, which isn’t nice)
Blend the olives to a nice paste with olive oil and lemon juice
Add capers, anchovies, garlic, chili and herbs and blend some more. (This pesto tastes so much better than the pre-fab version – especially when served with bread and eaten without baking or cooking)

(This is where you unwrap the pastry and open a glass of olive paste, in the quick version)
Dust the table with flour and roll out a thin oblong sheet of pastry
Spread with olive paste and make a roll
Cut the roll into slices with a very sharp knife.
Place the slices on baking paper and bake for 10 minutes in the oven (220°C/425°F), until they are crisp and golden.
Let the rolls cool off on a wire rack before serving.