Olive Oil Recipes

At La Casa del Abuelo, a tiny taberna in Madrid, gambas al ajillo (shrimp with garlic) are cooked in individual earthenware cazuelitas and served with plenty of bread to dip into the garlicky oil once the shrimp have been eaten. This dish can also be prepared in a skillet.

Bread that's grilled over an outdoor fire has a delicious, woodsy flavor and needs only the simplest of toppings.

The original recipe for Ryan Hardy's delicious citrusy, nutty and dense cake comes from London's River Café restaurant. He substitutes olive oil for some of the butter and insists that it be served with tangy crème fraîche and an espresso.

Tender rib chops take only a few minutes per side to cook but are elegant enough to serve to company. Coat them with just the garlic and oil, or try one of our herb variations.

Blogger Sarah Bolla layers fresh cherries in a vanilla-scented olive oil cake that is completely dairy-free.

Chef Gabriel Kreuther of The Modern serves this silky olive oil-poached salmon with a hot, fragrant horseradish broth.

Pressed and released in time for the holidays, "new oil" olive oil--called olio novello or olio nuovo in Italian--is vibrantly green and incredibly fresh-tasting. Its pronounced flavors transform this simple recipe, which can be served as an antipasto or as a sauce with fish or chicken.

Pastry chefs are coming up with fantastic new ways to use herbs in desserts. Elizabeth Dahl of Chicago's Boka makes a brilliant olive oil cake that's tender, moist and delicately flavored with fresh thyme. She tops it with lush figs tossed with sugar, black pepper and more thyme; as the fruit sits in the sugar, its juices thicken to form a luscious syrup.

Instead of using butter, chef José Andrés prefers to add richness with olive oil and Manchego cheese. His tip: "Add the olive oil slowly to the potatoes because if you dump it in all at once, you'll get streaks of oil."