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Home Cured Olives
This recipe was given to my mother by a local producer from Moonambel in Victoria, many years ago. I have tried other recipes, but keep coming back to this one.
Category: Preserves
Style: Greek
Author: Julie Malyon @ SBA's Kitchen
Ingredients
  • Freshly picked olives
  • Salt see notes
  • Water
Instructions
  1. Place the olives into a bucket and cover with cold water to wash them. Strain the olives from the water, retaining both the olives and the water. Measure the amount of water and note the quantity, this will allow you to calculate how much brine you need make. You can now discard the water.
  2. To make your brine add the same amount of fresh clean water that you noted in step 1, to a large pan together with 100 g/3.5 oz of salt for each litre/2 pints of water. Bring the brine to boiling point, stirring to ensure that the salt has dissolved. Remove from heat and cool until it is cold. Pour into food grade bucket large enough to hold the olives and the brine.
  3. Make three slits in the skin of each olive with a small, serrated knife while turning the fruit between the thumb and index finger. (Discard any blemish or bruised fruit) The cutting allows the brine to penetrate the fruit thus drawing out the bitterness, and at the same time preserves it.
  4. Put the cut olives immediately into the brine.
  5. When all the olives are in the brine place a clean plate on top of the olives to keep the them submerged. All olives must be under the liquid.
  6. Each day, pour the liquid away and replace with fresh brine. Repeat this washing process for about 12 days for green olives and about 10 days for black (ripe) olives until the bitterness has nearly gone. The best test is to bite an olive. When the bitterness has nearly gone, the olives are ready for the final salting.
  7. As in step 1, strain the olives from the brine, retaining both the olives and the brine. Measure the amount of brine and note how much. You can now discard the brine. Measure that quantity of clean water into a pan and dissolve the salt, this time 200 g/7 oz of salt for each litre/2 pints of water. Bring the salt water preserving mixture to the boil. Remove from the heat and set aside until it is cold.

  8. Place olives into clean jars and then pour the salt water brine over them until the fruit is completely submerged. Top up the bottles with up to 1cm / ¼ inch of olive oil to stop air getting to the fruit.

  9. Seal and label.

  10. Store for the olives in a cool cupboard. They will keep for at least 12 months.

Notes
  • When curing olives, you should:
    • Use only fresh, unbruised fruit.
    • Make sure your utensils are clean.
    • Only use glass, stainless steel, unchipped enamel or food grade plastic containers.
    • Never use copper, brass, iron or galvanised utensils as they react with the olives and taint the flavour.
    • Ensure that the olives are covered in brine and when placed in jars, the brine should cover the olives and then 1 cm of olive oil to prevent any air getting to the olives (the olives float in the brine) .
    • Wipe the rim of the jars well to ensure a good seal.
    • When choosing your salt, choose a good quality salt such as sea salt, rock salt or kosher salt. Always check to ensure that there are no additives such as thickeners and iodine.
    • Apparently this recipe is an old Greek recipe and is very easy.

 

  • Olives can be pickled when green or black.
    • Black olives are just ripe olives and are used for pickling and also pressed for olive oil.
    • Green olives are used for pickling. In season some of the olives begin to change towards black, at this time it is fairly safe to pick the green olives for pickling.
    • If the tree is large, place cloth sheets on the ground and strip the fruit from the tree with your hands or with a rake with suitably spaced prongs. Collect the fruit from the sheet, removing odd stems and leaves as you go.

 

  • When you want to use your olives:
    • Drain off the brine.
    • Place the olives into another clean jar, or bowl and fill the jar with clean, cool water.
    • Cover and leave in the refrigerator for 24 hours, taste them, and if still too salty repeat the process and return to the refrigerator for a further 24 hours. (The plain water removes some of the salt from the olives).
    • At this stage you can also add your favourite marinade, if you wish.
    • This brining method eliminates the need to use a caustic soda solution that is used in commercial processing of olives.

 

  •  Sources:
    • Olive Producer (name un-known), Moonambel, Victoria, Australia
    • Preserving the Italian Way, P Demaio, 2006.
    • Maggie Beer’s Autumn Harvest, M Beer, 2015, Penguin Random House.
    • Smoking, Curing & Drying Meat & Fish, TT Turan, 2015, Stackpole Books.
    • The Preserving Book, L Brown, 2010, Darling Kindersley..