Marche: Olive all’ascolana

Doses for about 100 olives

1 kg tender ascolane olives
100 g Beef Pulp
100 gr Pork Meat
100 g Chicken Meat
30 gr breadcrumbs
1/2 onion
80 g Parmesan Cheese
Rind of half a lemon
1 glass of white wine
1 egg
1 carrot and 1 small celery stalk
Salt, pepper, nutmeg to taste

For the breadcrumbs and frying
2 medium eggs
Flour 00 q.b.
Breadcrumbs to taste
Extra virgin olive oil

Marche: Olives all’ascolana. Chop the onion, celery and carrot and brown them in 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Dice the three types of meat, add them to the sauté, brown them, season with salt, add the white wine and let it evaporate over a low heat. Leave to cool. Grind and pour into a bowl adding the nutmeg, lemon zest, an egg, grated Parmesan and breadcrumbs. Knead until the mixture is soft but firm and let it rest for 30 minutes. With a small kitchen knife with a smooth blade, cut the olives into spirals without breaking them starting from the stalk, so as to remove the central bone. Fill the olives with the stuffing obtained by returning the original shape of the olive a little more swollen. Dip each olive first in flour, then in beaten egg and lastly in breadcrumbs. When they are all ready, leave them to rest in a cool place for half an hour and then repeat the breadcrumbs for a second time to make them nice and crispy for frying. Fry the ascolana olives in plenty of boiling extra virgin olive oil until golden brown and uniform. Serve the Ascoli olives hot. Olives are usually served as a snack or as part of an aperitif or appetiser, but they are also easily found as street food in the streets of Le Marche. It is since the second half of the 1800s that olives have been stuffed with meat (previously they were stuffed with herbs) and the reason was the recycling of leftover meat at banquets of wealthy families. The ideal accompaniment for Olives all’Ascolana are bubbles (either classic or Charmat method) or a structured, savoury white wine such as Verdicchio dei Castelli Jesini