Home Made Olives
Olives are Gluten Free. These preserves are delicious, and very nutritious, being rich in antioxidants such as Vitamin E.
All you really need to preserve your olives at home is plenty of salt and water. Brine made with water and salt, and just a dash of olive oil for the final part of the operation, will produce you delicious home made olives that will keep for a year at least.
Here is one way to preserve olives:
Olives are very bitter and inedible in their raw state. They need to be cured of this bitterness, and so we use salt to remove the bitter flavour. This done over a period of time:
Generally, green olives will take about 12 to 14 days, and black olives between 10 to 12 days to cure.
Method:
Begin by washing your freshly picked olives. Remove any stalks from the olives. Now put them into a ceramic or glass bowl or large open necked jar. Do not use stainless steel or any other metal, as this will spoil your olives – even stainless steel has a reaction to salt.
Step Two: Make your brine. Use one cup of sea salt to every 20 cups of water. Pour this over your washed olives.
Step Three: Put a plate or other ceramic or glass weight on your olives to hold them down beneath the brine. All olives must be covered with brine.
Step Four: Leave for 24 hours. Then drain off the brine.
Step Five: Make a fresh lot of brine.Pour over the olives and leave for another 24 hours.
Step Six etc: Keep changing the water every 24 hours for 10 to 12 days, or for as long as is needed to produce a nice sweet olive.
TheFinal Step: When you are satisfied with the flavour of your olive, put them into jars suitable for storing. Then make a brine using 1 cup of sea salt to only TEN cups of water. This final brine is double the strength that we used before.
Bring this brine to the boil and dissolve all the salt. Let this cool to warm then pour over your olives in the jars.
Leave an inch or so at the top of the jar. Top with virgin olive oil to prevent the air getting in, and seal.
How To Use Your Home Made Olives:
Simply open a jar. Then drain off the brine and wash with fresh water several times. Fill with more fresh water and keep the olives in the fridge as you use them.
Alternatively, you can use olive oil to fill the jar with at the eating stage. You still need to keep the olives in the fridge though. This olive oil can abe used for cooking with.