You know when you buy olives from the store in little deli containers? They’re usually lemon/garlic or chili pepper something, and you leave Whole Foods or wherever with a huge grin, knowing you’ll pop them into your mouth one by one, grinning ear to ear at the salty, savory goodness of the olives. Then you get down to the last few, the ones bathing in the vinegar and oil at the bottom of the container, and you pause. They’re kind of greasy, and you think “maybe  I can do something with this oily goodness?”

This is a recipe borne from that very situation. This recipe gets all fancy and uses fiddleheads since they’re in season in New England late spring, but it’d be almost as delicious if you used small bits of broccoli.

Ingredients:

• 1 box of pasta (I prefer penne or gemelli)
• 1/2 lb fiddleheads (or sub finely chopped broccoli)
• 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 2 vine tomatoes
• 1/2 lb fresh mozzarella cheese
• the last bit of a container of olives packed in oil and spices
• black pepper
• kosher salt

Dice the tomatoes and cheese into small cubes.

Steam the fiddleheads by placing them in a pot (ideally in a steaming basket, but I don’t have one..) with ~1/2″ of boiling water for 2 minutes.

Boil the pasta according to the package directions. Once it’s done, strain the water out in a colander and rinse the pasta in cold water to stop it from cooking further. Toss the pasta in the oil and stuff from the olive container, then add the rest of the ingredients. Add a couple good punches of salt and pepper to taste. Stir everything to combine and enjoy on a porch with some rose or vinho verde. Happy summer!