Olive oil with bread: the most honest taste test

Bread dipped in olive oil is the simplest dish on this list, and the most revealing. No garlic, no heat, no other ingredient to cover anything up. You taste the oil as it is.

The basic version

Pour olive oil into a shallow dish until it covers the base. Add a pinch of sea salt. Tear the bread by hand rather than cutting it, and dip.

Torn bread has a rough surface that holds oil better than a knife-cut edge. It sounds trivial but it makes a real difference.

What you should taste

Fresh extra virgin olive oil should give you three things, in order:

1. 1.A fruity aroma — green like cut grass or tomato leaf, or riper and softer
2. 2.A light bitterness at the back of the tongue
3. 3.A peppery catch at the back of the throat a few seconds after swallowing

If you get none of the three — if the oil simply tastes oily and nothing more — it has either been refined, gone old, or been badly stored.

Adding to it without hiding it

Once you have tasted the oil on its own, these additions are good on a table:

• Coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• A crushed garlic clove, left in the oil for ten minutes
• Za'atar or sumac, if you have them
• Crushed dried chilli
• Dried oregano or thyme
• A little balsamic at the side of the dish, not stirred in

Which bread suits it

Bread with an open crumb and a firm crust works best — sourdough, baguette, ciabatta, or a thick Arabic flatbread. Soft white bread soaks up too much oil and goes limp.

Day-old bread warmed briefly in the oven is excellent too, and a good way to use up a loaf that has started to firm up.

Use extra virgin for this. The "pure" and "light" grades are refined, and flavour is exactly what refining removes — there is nothing left to dip into.