Three old olive trees grow near the Calle Gisbert gate near the marina and they are bearing fruit.
I picked 1.3 kilos (2.9 pounds) and cured them aboard Solstice.
To cure the olives I did the following steps:
- Wash the olives in fresh water.
- Slice each olive vertically without cutting into the pit.
- Prepare a 10% brine of 4 liters of cold water and 400 grams of non-iodized salt.
- Soaked the olives in the brine - with a 10% brine the olives will float to the top. I placed another tub with a weight on top to keep the olives submerged.
- Shake the brine tub daily.
- Change the brine once a week and begin testing at the end of week three.
At the conclusion of week four we repeated the taste test. The dark olives were ready. I rinsed them thoroughly in cold fresh water and now they are stored in white wine vinegar with olive oil.
They taste great, but the skins are tough and the flesh is softer than I prefer. I'll continue to age them and see what changes time will bring.The greener olives are still in the brine in week six. It may take another six to mellow these out.
Hi John,
ReplyDeleteI also did olives this year. I've done them several other times in the States, so I've had a bit of practice although the results always vary since I never get to use olives that are my first choice - I have to take what I get.
We did 3 buckets, each from a different tree, species, and degree of maturity. I usually use lye on green olives and did so this year. With one batch, I sliced the olives, but we had a bunch of really small ones and I just wasn't up to slicing a thousand olives so they went into the lye the way they were. I forget the portions of lye to water, but I got it off the web and will look it up again the next time.
Anyway, after a day in the lye solution, I drained them and then for 10 days changed their fresh water 3-5 times a day. The water was always stained purple at each changing. The lye broke down the skin so that the bitterness could come out. When I first soaked them, before the lye, there was no color change in the water, but after lye there was lots of purple coming out. After 10 days they were sweet and (this is important), still firm. I have used lye in the past and overdid it, resulting in olives that were too mushy. This batch was perfect, most of them green with a few starting to turn purple. Then I made an aliño with a commercial mix that I got at the store. I could have made my own but this one seemed to have everything already there. I had pimentón, cumin, oregano, and thyme. This went into a mild brine with a half cup of vinegar. I also added lots of chopped garlic and a few sqeezed half-lemons and poured some olive oil on top to keep the air out. Our Spanish relatives had a feeding frenzy when we put them out and in 10 minutes, a bowl of them was reduced to pits. I'm taking some more to New Years eve.
I think black olives lose their bitterness more easily and can get by without lye, but the green ones really need it unless you have lots of time for soaking and rinsing.
Abrazos,
Quijote