It's that time of year, Olive time! Sort of like Hammer time, but without the parachute pants and house foreclosures. I have a baaaad feeling about this batch of olives. The first time I made olives was back in 2003 in Santa Monica, and I confess that I used lye in the initial curing phase. Boy, it really did the trick, and soon after the water ran clear, I brined them then ate them and they actually didn't totally suck. Funny, because I don't even really like olives all that much, I just wanted to see how to make them.
So when I saw a bunch of green and purplish Manzanillas at the SF Farmer's Market, I decided to have another go at olive curing. Sadly, my baby addled brain sort of forgot about them for a few days and I lost about a third to the elements. I decided to go the non-lye curing route this time, so on the advice of several websites, I whacked the olives with a rolling pin to help the water get into the center of the olive so that the yucky, bitter glucoside would be extracted easier. I may have banged some of the olives too hard (snort) cause after a week in water they were looking pretty damaged. Oops.
But carry on I did, after a week in water being changed daily, into a brine they went. The green got salt, white vinegar, lemon, garlic and rosemary, and the purple got red wine vinegar, cumin, coriander, black pepper and oregano. I have no idea if that was a good choice.
What's the worse that could happen?
Comments