Cookbook Club – Season: Big Flavors, Beautiful Food

September’s Cookbook Club book was Nik Sharma’s Season: Big Flavors, Beautiful Food. Sharma’s stunning photography showcases his take on Indian cooking in this gorgeous cookbook. To see all the beautiful food, go to my Cookbook Club site. For now – my dish!

I got as far as the second recipe in the book and was already sold on these Chipotle-Garam Masala Olives. I forced myself to go through the rest of the cookbook and saw a multitude of other compelling recipes, but couldn’t get my mind off the olives so it was decided.

I rinsed and drained kalamata olives (the recipe lets you decide between extra-large black olives or kalamata, and I adore kalamata).

I put flour in one bowl, lightly beaten eggs in another, and in a third bowl mixed together bread crumbs, parsley, red pepper flakes, Garam Masala, chipotle, salt, and pepper.

I dredged each olive in flour, then egg, then the seasoned bread crumb mixture. As you can see, the recipe called for way more dredging ingredients than I needed. This was also the step that took the longest because each olive had to be done individually.

I fried the olives in hot oil until golden brown (about 1 minute). This took several batches.

The olives are meant to be served hot, and oh my were they good hot out of the fryer! But even at room temp (more than an hour later by the time I transported them to Cookbook Club and we were finally eating) these were a hit. I will definitely make them again, maybe trying it with the extra-large black olives since bigger olives means less dredging, though they were so good with kalamata.