Sweet, Savory Olive Oil Dip

I love discovering new and accomplished folks in the professional culinary world, like Carolina Gelen, who was born in Transylvania, Romania. Upon winning a Jamie Oliver contest, she immigrated to the United States in 2021. Since then Carolina has worked in the kitchens of James Beard Award winners, developed video and recipe content for New York Times Cooking, and was a recipe resident at Food52.

Simultaneously, Carolina built an online community of millions who love her cooking and baking recipes for being so shareable, approachable, and delicious, all before the age of twenty-five. You might have seen her book cover, shown below. I’ve seen her smiling face on several blogs whose authors are way ahead of me in their discovery of her.

I discovered Carolina Gelen on Facebook or maybe Instagram. It was a video for what she calls Sweet and Savory Olive Oil Dip. What got my attention the most is that she uses balsamic vinegar pearls. I’ve owned 2 jars of these for quite a few years and was never sure how to use them!

This dip is all over the place, which definitely intrigued me! There’s oil with chiles, olives, dates, pickled onions, balsamic vinegar pearls, and sesame seeds. A very strange combination!

Sweet and Savory Olive Oil Dip

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar pearls
2 dates, pitted and chopped
1/3 cup Castelvetrano olives, sliced
2 Calabrian chiles, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped pickled onions
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
A sprinkle of thyme
4 ounces crumbled goat cheese
Bread of choice

Combine all ingredients in a shallow bowl. Stir to combine. (I added everything to the bowl and poured in the olive oil.)

After stirring together gently, I added the goat cheese crumbles.

Serve with bread and dip away!

This dip is fabulous! It’s a little hard to eat, but worth digging and dipping to get all of the goodies. The dates work and the chile peppers which work and the sesame seeds… if anything I’d omit the olive slices or chop them up.

note: The best way to toast sesame seeds is in a seed toaster, that has a lid. The seeds will pop as they heat on the stove.