logo
Rukmini Iyer's quick and easy recipe for gildas in carriages

Rukmini Iyer's quick and easy recipe for gildas in carriages

The Guardian19-05-2025

Gildas are such a lovely pre-dinner snack: really good olives and anchovies on a stick, with any number of variations, such as artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, bits of cheese … The one I had most recently, at Brett in Glasgow, was beyond wonderful, and featured chicken fat-topped croutons and homemade green chilli sauce with plump Perelló olives and anchovies. Inspired by this, I made a lemon-spiked green chilli and artichoke tapenade for hot focaccia, topped with the same excellent olives and the best anchovies.
I don't usually specify brands in my recipes, but when there are so few ingredients, it really is worth getting the ones recommended below as a treat. They're very rich, too, so a few go a long way.
Prep 15 min
Cook 20 min
Serves 6 as a starter or pre-drink snack
250g focaccia
125g jarred artichokes in olive oil (drained weight), plus 25ml oil from the jar1 tsp sea salt flakes
Juice of ½ lemon1-2 large green chillies, depending on your tolerance to heat150g tinned green olives (drained weight; from a 350g tin) – I like Perelló1-2 47½g tins anchovies in oil (27g drained weight) – I like Ortiz
Heat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6. If the focaccia is part-baked, cook it according to the packet instructions. Once cool enough to handle, cut the focaccia into 3cm-wide x 7cm-long x 1½cm-deep pieces (essentially long and wide enough to hold two slices of olive, as pictured). Put the focaccia pieces on a baking tray and bake for 15-20 minutes, until crisp.
Meanwhile, roughly blitz the artichokes, olive oil from the jar, salt, lemon juice and chillies in a high-speed blender or food processor to make a rough paste, rather than a smooth puree.
Drain and cut the olives in half and open the tins of anchovies. Once the croutons are ready, spread them immediately with the artichoke tapenade, then arrange two olive halves and half a piece of anchovy on top. Leave to cool for five minutes, then serve warm with drinks.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Children's books should reflect the diverse world they live in
Children's books should reflect the diverse world they live in

The Guardian

time19 minutes ago

  • The Guardian

Children's books should reflect the diverse world they live in

Regarding gen Z parents not reading to their children (Letters, 5 June), we must also consider what children are offered to read. It's not just about reading more, but about stories that feel relevant, spark curiosity and reflect real lives. Many parents we work with say that books often feel repetitive, irrelevant or dominated by the same voices. When children and parents see themselves and their communities in stories, they enjoy reading more, which supports emotional development and academic success. Yet diversity in children's books is falling. The latest CLPE report shows that ethnic minority main characters dropped from 14% in 2022 to 7% in 2023, despite nearly 40% of schoolchildren in England being from those backgrounds. Our study with the University of Manchester, due to be published later this year, highlights how representation boosts Black children's confidence and enjoyment of reading. Diverse stories help children build empathy, understanding and emotional literacy. If we want families to read more, we need books that truly reflect the world we live Ehigie Founder, Imagine Me Stories, Dr Nicola Lester Lecturer in psychology, University of Manchester Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.

‘Kid rotting': why parents are letting their children go wild this summer
‘Kid rotting': why parents are letting their children go wild this summer

The Guardian

time24 minutes ago

  • The Guardian

‘Kid rotting': why parents are letting their children go wild this summer

Name: Summer kid rotting. Age: The name is new, but long school summer holidays started spreading in the 1840s, thanks to the US educational reformer Horace Mann. Appearance: Laidback and a little messy. What's this Kid Rot then? Does Kid Rock have a brother? No, it's a 2025 way of describing 'letting your kids do nothing in the summer holidays', also known as a 'wild summer'. American parents are fighting back against (or giving up on) expensive, overscheduled summers of camps and activities for their offspring. 'What if, some are daring to wonder, my kid does nothing?' the New York Times reported. A return to the old ways, huh? When I was young, we were sent out with a penknife, a tin of pipe tobacco and a bottle of dandelion and burdock on the day school broke up. It was strongly suggested we should not return home until 1 September. No, you weren't. No, OK, we weren't. We spent six weeks bored out of our minds, watching TV and fighting. We'd have loved expensive, overscheduled summers! Well, some US parents are sick of paying through the nose to keep their kids out of trouble – one interviewed by the NYT spent $40,000 (£30,000) on occupying her three children for eight weeks. Inflation is making summer camps unaffordable for many: a survey found 30% of parents go into debt or defer payments. And while the situation isn't as bad in the UK, it's still a struggle for parents: research last year found UK summer childcare costs £1,000 a kid on average. Ouch! And kids don't even seem to enjoy organised summer stuff much: 'It was a fight every day to get them to go,' one parent told the NYT. 'He cried every single day at drop-off,' a journalist at the Cut said of her son's summer camp. Maybe a bit of boredom isn't so bad. Being bored is being rebranded as the better option for pushy parents. 'I tell them their kid will be more 'ahead' with their own experimentation,' a US educational consultant reassures her anxious clients. But 'their experimentation' will be whatever the algorithm decides – kids will be glued to YouTube, won't they? Yes, screen time is a concern, and if the little darlings manage to enable in-app purchases, your iPad could prove a more expensive babysitter than the fanciest camp. If they're going to be screen rotting all day every day, parents could at least put them to work - give them a bitcoin and a day-trading account and see how much money they can make by September. A bitcoin is currently worth 81 grand – you'd get a lot of fancy summer camps for that. Do say: 'We're having a wild summer.' Don't say: 'Yeah, we're going large at Glasto, microdosing in Mykonos, then an ayahuasca retreat in Peru. What are the kids doing? No idea.'

Norwich meeting scheme for new fathers launched
Norwich meeting scheme for new fathers launched

BBC News

timean hour ago

  • BBC News

Norwich meeting scheme for new fathers launched

A group to support new fathers hopes the sessions will enable dads to feel less isolated by connecting with others while also bonding with their Get Me Out The Four Walls (GMOTFW) charity, based at Mason Road, Norwich, is behind the new project which aims to help fathers maintain strong mental manager Carrie Dagraca said: "Quite often dads are a forgotten group."Blokes aren't quite as good about talking about their feelings, but it's very important for the wellbeing of the whole family that dads just don't suffer in silence." She added: "We know the mums need support, we know mums can suffer from mental health issues, both during and after their pregnancy and we do have a free peer support service for any mum or dad that is experiencing mental health issues."GMOTFW, which has been running for 10 years, said the meetings were focussed around the use of Lego and other modelling bricks, the idea being this activity will encourage all ages to more about why the "construction" idea was adopted, Eleanor Mason, chair of trustees for GMOTFW, said: "We've really tried over the years to appeal to dads and to get dads to come and see us, and we've found activities like coffee and a chat is not working."Dads do not want to come in, sit in a circle and talk about their feelings. So we figured, just do something a bit different, get the Lego out, they can sit down with their children, have a play, build a house, build a car, build whatever and have a chat."Then if they do decide they want to talk to somebody they can do that afterwards, but just coming along and having some fun, that's fine too." The new group's first session was on Saturday and will be run on a monthly sessions are open to fathers with children under the age of two, or dads-to-be who "may wish to come along to experience what it is like to have small children".Older siblings are also welcome, the charity said. Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store