Recipe makes 4 servings
Background story:
- When my daughter Fiona doesn’t have school on Saturday morning, she and her mother visit the farmers’ market.
- They always stop at Makram’s stall, where he sells a variety of products, including olives and taramasalata.
- Makram is a friendly salesman who makes all his customers feel special.
- Fiona tells Makram about the sandwich she makes with his herbed cheese and almond-stuffed olives, and he asks her how to make it.
- Makram makes the sandwich for Fiona and wraps it in a napkin, giving it to her with a flourish.
Ingredients:
- 9 ounces (250 g) very soft fresh goat cheese
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon herbes de Provence
- One 9-ounce (250-g) baguette, sliced lengthwise almost in half, so that when you open it, it remains attached along one side
- 4 ounces (110 g) green olives, cut in half and pitted
- ¼ cup (40 g) raw almonds, coarsely chopped
Instructions:
- Place the cheese, the olive oil, and the herbes de Provence in a medium bowl and mix. Taste to be sure you’ve added enough herbs for your taste.
- Thickly spread each side of the baguette with the cheese, using all of it.
- Arrange the olives on one side of the sandwich, the almonds on the other, pressing them firmly into the cheese so they’ll stay there as you eat the sandwich.
- Firmly press the halves of the bread back together, then cut it into four lengths on the bias.
- Serve with a big green salad alongside.
Note:
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- You can adapt Makram and Fiona’s sandwich by adding sundried tomatoes, lots of freshly ground black pepper, fresh lettuce, thin-sliced cucumber, and freshly sliced seasonal tomatoes.
- You may also want to vary the herbs, though a good herbs de Provence mixture is hard to beat.
- Note, too, that there are dozens of varieties of green olives. Makram’s are Tunisian, fleshy and firm, and marinated in a salty brine.
