At Jimmy’s, the new supperclub in Lodi, chef Adam Darville sears a piece of Ora King salmon on the flat top, leaving the center rare. He lays it on a raft of roasted baby carrots in carrot puree, perching a tangle of arugula and ribbons of shaved carrot on top. For the finishing touch, he drizzles bright red Corto Olive Calabrian chili oil on the dish.
Corto Olive, a leader in California extra virgin olive oil production, has long been a favorite of chefs and home cooks alike. The company has used advanced technology to minimize the time from harvest to processing, yielding extremely high-quality product. Yet the company has been innovating in another way.
In 2021, Corto released its first Agrumato-method oil, its inaugural Calabrian chili flavor. Agrumato is a proprietary method of crushing whole ingredients with the olives to impart robust flavors.
The technique comes from Italy, where they’ve been co-pressing citrus fruit with olives to create a fruity condiment. The term comes from the Italian word for citrus, agrumi.
Crushing the ingredients together allows a fuller array of flavors in the oil. Simple infusions or flavor additives have a flatter, more limited profile.
“The olives and the chilies will go together through the crusher. After it goes through crushing, the next stage is called malaxation, which is really just a fancy word for a very slow mixing or agitation period, like 20 to 30 minutes, that allows all the oil droplets to get larger; it helps the separation. Then it goes into a centrifuge, where we separate the oil from the rest of the crushed ingredients,” said David Garci-Aguierre, master miller for Corto.
Crafting the recipe and getting the balance of ingredients right involves a rigorous process of research and development. According to Garci-Aguierre, their lab has a mini-mill where they can test small batches of Agrumato and fine tune the process. The team has tested more than 100 different flavors. Not all work.
“We’re looking for flavors that are oil soluble. So if it’s water-soluble, things like sugar, they will not translate to the oil. So a lot of ingredients that sound great, like they’d be an awesome pairing, just come out totally different than what you’d expect,” he said.
In the years since the first batch, Corto has done annual releases of Agrumato with flavors including lemon verbena, lemongrass-basil, yuzu and, of course, Calabrian chili, which they make every year. This year’s debut flavor is horseradish.
Production is small, and the products tend to sell out quickly. Crush on this year’s batch of Calabrian chili oil began on Sept. 30. Home cooks can purchase a set of the two flavors online via Corto Olive or Amazon.
To promote the oils, Corto has launched its first-ever Agrumato Month, partnering with 24 chefs across the country to showcase the premium oils in their dishes for a limited time in October. To allow them time to develop their dishes, Corto sent them pre-release bottles from the research lab.
Chef Darville of Jimmy’s is one of the participating chefs, but California diners can find specials featuring Agrumato-method oils at San Francisco’s Foreign Cinema, Rheem’s California in Oakland and Truly Pizza in Dana Point.
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Sean Timberlake is the food and dining reporter for The Sacramento Bee. He has been writing professionally about food for over 20 years.
