Olive curing recipes?

I just realized that I never did post the instructions/ recipe for olive curing on here.. So here’s the way I did it.

You’ll need a crock or jar or plastic bucket big enough to hold the olives and water.

Before you start you need to crack the olives. You can do it either by placing a board over them and gently smashing them, or by cutting a slit in each one. I cut a slit in each one. It took a long time for 10 pounds of olives but I was afraid smashing would ruin the texture. Just my personal preference. If you do cut them make sure you have a container of water to put them in immediately. Once the fruit is exposed to air it will start turning brown.

For the first 7-10 days you just soak the olives in plain old water. You need to change the water daily to keep it from developing mold and bacteria. I used distilled water for the whole process. Some of the olives will float so you’ll need something to keep them all submerged.

You want to keep doing the water cure until the bitterness is mostly gone. Taste them to check the progress.

When they’re ready you can start brining. The brine is roughly 1 part salt to 10 parts water. You can test the brine by placing an egg in the water. If the egg floats the brine is perfect. If it doesn’t float add more salt. Put the olives in the brine and make sure all of them are submerged. You should stir the olives daily and change the solution every 4 days.

It took about a month from this point. We tasted the olives every week to check the progress. This is all personal taste. When they taste good to you they’re done.

Then it’s on to the final step, pickling and canning.

You’ll need enough clean and sanitized jars for your olives. I got the standard jam jars with the lid and separate ring. These are pretty easy to work with even if you’ve never done this before. You should be able to find them at the grocery store, I found mine at Ace Hardware. To sanitize them you can run them through the rinse cycle on your dishwasher or dip them in a pot of boiling water.

For the pickling solution you use equal parts vinegar (white, apple cider or red wine) add 1/2 cup salt per gallon. Mix the solution together in a stock pot and heat it to a boil.

In a separate small sauce pan simmer a small amount of water and put the lids and rings in there.

Fill the jars with olives and seasonings. I did a couple different varieties. One that I tried out was a citrus fennel (thin slices of lemon and orange with fennel seeds) the other was a spicy one with crushed red pepper flakes and garlic.

One note on garlic.. Don’t use fresh garlic cloves. Use jarred garlic. It works better.

When you fill the jars you want to pack them tightly but leave a little room at the top. If the olives touch the lid it might not seal properly. Pour the hot pickling solution over the olives and wipe the top edge of the jar with a clean dry towel. Get one of the lids and rings and seal the jar. Be careful with handling the jars since they will be hot. Let the sealed jars sit on a table or counter to cool. Space them out so air can circulate around the jars. They will make a popping noise when they’re sealed.

If you have a jar that doesn’t seal just pour out the liquid and heat it to boiling again, put it back in the jar, wipe the top and seal it. It’ll usually seals on the second try.

You can eat them once they cool but I’d recommend letting them hang out in the pickling solution for at least a couple days for the best flavor.

You can store them in the fridge if you want but you don’t have to. They will keep about 6 months.

I know it seems like a lot of work but it’s really more waiting than anything. And it’s all worth it.