Pickle and store olives properly after harvesting.
Olives originated in the Middle East and constituted an important part of the diet of ancient people of the Mediterranean. Olive-pickers harvest the olives in the autumn, after the green fruits start to plump following the first fall rains. Olives have an extremely bitter taste when they come off the tree and must undergo a brining process before pickling and storing. Olives that stay on the tree until the end of the season become black on the tree, and methods for storing black and green olives differ.
Instructions
Green Olives
1. Using a knife, slit each olive twice. This will help the bitterness drain out of the olives while they sit in salt water.
2. Put your harvested olives in a glass pickling jar. Pour a warm salt-water solution over the olives. Make sure that the salt water solution completely covers all of the olives.
3. Change the salt water solution every other day for at least two weeks.
4. Drain the salt water and fill up the pickling jar with the olives. Cover the olives with water and add pickling spices. Pickling spices for olives include salt, hot peppers (if desired), bay leaves, allspice cloves, lemon juice or lemon slices and garlic. Quantities will depend on the amount of olives and the size of the pickling jar.
5. Pour olive oil over the olives to prevent mold from forming. Leave the olives in a cool dark corner for at least two weeks to pickle. When you start taking out your olives, always use a clean spoon to remove the olives to prevent bacteria from your hands or a used utensil from compromising the brine and ruining the olives.
Black Olives
6. Proceed with the same method of drawing out the bitterness of the olives by soaking them in salt water.
7. Layer the olives in a Pyrex, glass or plastic pan or container. Sprinkle rock salt, or kosher salt, in between the layers.
8. Store the olives in a cool dark corner for several months. After a few months, the olives will turn completely black and taste very salty.
Tags: salt water, cool dark, cool dark corner, dark corner, least weeks, olives cool
