I have always loved olives but never knew what went into preserving them. After seeing a post on Facebook advertising olives for sale I decided to give it a go. The wonderful lady delivered the olives off her fathers tree to my door as well as a recipe on how to soak, brine and marinate them. To say I was daunted was an understatement. Here I was thinking that once marinated they could be eaten them straight away.
Olives straight from the tree and delivered to my door!
The process began by washing the 2kg of olives, cutting 2-3 slits down to the pit and placing them in jars of water to soak for a week, changing the water daily. I thought I had big enough jars to put them in but I was wrong and had to do them in smaller jars which was an absolute pain. After the week of soaking, a brine was made with a ridiculous amount of salt and water. They had to be brined for 5 week.s I am a really impatient person so this was painful. I just wanted to get them finished so I could eat them!
After the 5 weeks were over the olives were emptied, rinsed and put into clean jars with chilli, garlic, lemon and dill. They needed to sit in a cool dark place for at least 2 weeks before being eaten. After such a long process I was expecting the best olives ever but was slightly disapointed. They are nice, but not as good as I thought they would be. I was lucky enough to be given two different types of black olives off a friend to marinate. I chose to use garlic and oregano with these ones so it will be interesting to see how they taste once the flavours have settled.
Update: They were fantastic. I will be doing olives again next year.
