From one of my favorite new cookbooks, Ohana Style: Food from Hawai’i, for Your Family by Sheldon Simeon. My folks lived in Maui for a long time and this book is filled with amped up Hawaiian inspired dishes. This is one of our favorites, which we have adapted slightly:
Some years back, I was a chef at a restaurant called Mala in Wailea, which was run by a talented chef named Mark Ellman. He had an appetizer on the menu that was called something like “warmed olives,” basically cured olives heated gently in oil with garlic and other aromatics. But since the restaurant was extremely busy, the pans we used were almost never warm, but were, in fact, screaming hot from being in use all the time. That meant the warmed olives ended up more like stir-fried
olives, which I always thought tasted better anyway. And I’ve been cooking them at home for parties that way ever since. Aside from the usual seasonings that go well with olives-garlic, lemon, pepper, ginger-the MVP here is the slight wok hei flavor from the caramelized oyster sauce, which sizzles in the hot pan and turns into an umami-rich glaze that coats the olives and everything else with them in the pan. The salty olives are delicious, obviously, but I’d also highly recommend nibbling on the flash-fried garlic and sucking any residual flavor from the ginger slices and lemon peel as well.
OHANA STYLE OLIVES
1 tablespoon neutral oil
2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
12 ounces high-quality olives, such as Castelvetrano, Kalamata, or a mix
4 cloves garlic, sliced
Zest of 1 large lemon, removed in wide strips
4 teaspoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon each of freshly ground black pepper, sea salt, and herbs de Provence
SERVES 4 TO 6
Set a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat, add the neutral oil, and heat until it just begins to smoke. Add the ginger and cook, stirring, until the slices are softened slightly, less than a minute. Add the olives, garlic, lemon zest, oyster sauce, olive oil, and pepper, sea salt and herbs de Provence. Toss to coat. Cook, stirring or tossing often, until the olives are heated through, 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and let cool slightly before serving.