An article in today's New York Times on Curing Olives with the recipe has me very tempted to do this with my class at school. I've got a lot of kids in my class who love olives, and my nearby produce market has crates of raw green olives. If we start now, they should be ready to eat when we do our big Israel unit in the spring. Have any of you cured olives at home?
Amy, I have tried in the past, but I didn't have the right kind of container or the right recipe, because they got moldy. The recipe that you link to looks quite promising. I should go check the olive trees on our driveway and see if there are enough olives left to try it.
We cured olives once, many years ago, using the lye method recommended by the Calif. Agricultural Extension folks -- and after going through that convoluted process I swore I would never do that again. (Although once they were cured, we followed a recipe that was fabulous - they were packed in olive oil with garlic, rosemary and an anchovy or two - and they were fabulous after they had had time to absorb those flavors).
The salt curing sounds SOOOOOO much easier -- just wonder if your little ones will like the end result - looks like they will be fairly spicy, and I would guess there will be some residual bitterness.
If you decide to do it, let us know next year how it turned out!
Judy
Posts: 1882 | Location: Berkeley, CA | Registered: 22 March 2005
If you decide to do it, let us know next year how it turned out!
Yeah, it sounds good, but I think I will wait until the jury is in on this one. Every time I try one of these do-it-yourself-in-your-own-kitchen recipes that is supposed to be as good as the commercial product, I have been disappointed.
There was the "Kahlua", the Japanese green plum wine, the . . . oh well, you get the idea.
They look great! one year I did a test, three kinds of olives. Salt water brined, Lye cured ( caustic soda) and just salt.
The salt water brined ones get a mold on the top which is natural but did not appeal to me.
the caustic soda is how commercial olives are prepared too, but the water looks like blood and also turned me off!
the just salt is now Diva's Olives
Mix kosher salt with black "raw" olives. the salt draws out the bitter water in the olives. daily, throw away the liquid that has formed on the bottom of the bottle.
When there is no more liquid the olives are done!
then I rinse the olives and dry them, and rub with olive oil.
you can then season them. I just leave them in the jar! My husband adores these. they are hard to find on sale.
This isn't a familiar term to me - I've done a little searching and it seems that coarse sea salt with no additives, which is widely available here, is a reasonable equivalent. Is that the case? (unlikely as it seems, my mother has a fine olive tree fruiting in the UK (warm part of the country, very sheletered position) and we were wondering what to do with them.
Posts: 927 | Location: London, UK | Registered: 20 September 2006
Judy, I'd love a bit more information--I'll be looking forward to your blog entry! A question--when you say you drain off the liquid from the bottom, you just pour it out? No rinsing yet?
Also, my reading suggests eome differences between curing green and black olives when using non-lye methods.
yes just keep pouring off the liquid! some recipes I have seen put the olives and salt in a stocking and hang it outside letting it drip! A little too rustic for me!
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