Salted Olive Crisps

This recipe is from My Paris Kitchen, published in 2014, by David Lebovitz, which chronicles his move from the U.S. to Paris. There, he purchased and renovated a home, which is quite an entertaining story. I wrote more about him and his book in my Cassoulet post.

These “crisps” are made from a quick bread with olives and almonds.

They are reminiscent of Martha Stewart’s savory biscotti I made a few years back with walnuts, Kalamata olives, and Parmesan.

The process for making these crisps are similar to biscotti, with baking first, followed by toasting. It’s also easy to make a sweet version, as I did to create a fruit and nut variety to mimic those that cost $50. in stores.

I’m only mentioning my previous posts because this technique is such a great way to make unique crostini for cheese and other hors d’oeuvres. You can really get creative.

From Mr. Lebovitz: “I brought my bread knife with me when I moved to Paris because I knew I would be lost without it. A good bread knife is something everyone should own,m especially if you live in a country where bread is a religion. But be careful how you obtain one; it’s considered bad luck in France to give someone a knife. Folk wisdom says that the knife cuts the friendship and the only way to prevent that is for the recipient to give a bit of money to the knife-giver, usually a coin or two. Although the practice hasn’t quite been a windfall for me, I give a lot of people bread knives because it drives me nuts to see people hacking away at bread with dull knives.”

Well this made me literally laugh out loud. I’m sure many of you cooks have been at friends’ homes and grabbed a knife to help with cooking and realized that you couldn’t even cut off your finger if you tried. I’ve gifted many many chef’s knives to those friends, but only one has told me about this superstition, (sorry Claire!), and she’s a Texan, so it’s probably not just a French thing. Very silly.

Salted Olive Crisps
Croquets Salés aux Olives

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 teaspoon herbes de Provence, or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup (45g) untoasted almonds, very coarsely chopped
1/3 cup (60g) packed, coarsely chopped pitted olives

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9” loaf pan with nonstick spray. Line the bottom with a piece of parchment paper.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour and whole wheat flours, sugar, herbs, salt, baking soda, and black pepper.

Stir in the buttermilk with a spatula and mix in the almonds and olives.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes, until it feels set in the center.

Remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the loaf to loosen it, remove from the pan and set the loaf on a wire rack to cool.

Decrease the oven temperature to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Holding the outside edges of the cake firmly with your hand to keep the edges from crumbling, slice the loaf crosswise as thinly as possible, no thicker than 1/4” thick.

Lay the slides cut side down on the baking sheets, and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, flipping the slices and rotating the baking sheets on the racks of the oven midway through baking so they brown evenly.

Watch them carefully during the last 10 minutes of baking; you want them to be a deep golden brown, so they’ll crisp up nicely when cool. If some crisps brown faster than others, transfer those to a cooling rack while the rest of the crisps toast.

Remove from the oven and let cool completely before serving. The crisps can be stored for up to 1 week in an airtight container at room temperature.

Note: Mr. Lebovitz also recommends the wrinkly, dry-cured olives from Nyons for these crisps, which magically carry the scent of Provence to these crisps. But any olive that’s not too damp will work. If there’s any moisture, dry the olives with a paper towel.