Olive oil gelato

I had never even heard of olive oil gelato until I visited Rome in my senior year in gymnasium. In a moment of delirium I had chosen latin for one of my A-levels, and so for three years I spent hours trying to decipher sentences that could take up almost an entire page. The “I” and the “think” separated by so many parentheticals my poor translations of the texts wouldn’t make much sense to any Roman should they ever have come across them.

In any case our small group of grammatical masochists made it through and our reward came in the third year when our admittedly brilliant teacher and his wife took us on a weeklong holiday in Rome. It must have been his 40th visit and thankfully he was as much in love with Rome’s food as its history and architecture. Needless to say we walked a lot and ate a lot. I can’t remember it all now, it’s close to twenty years ago, but a few things really stand out. Cappuccino and cornetti for breakfast, saffron risotto and an olive oil gelato so good I nearly scandalised passersby.

Olive oil gelato is one of the flavours I make often at home, since I can rarely find it in ice cream shops around here. It is beautiful on its own, but pairs well with a range of other flavours. Obviously fruit sorbets, dark chocolate ice cream but I really love it with my pistachio gelato.

Also I can’t stress enough to get a good quality olive oil. Find a fruity finishing olive oil, preferably with a little peppery kick to it and save the grassier oils for another use.