The Best Homemade Olives

Green Olives cured in olive oil

It’s that time of year again when the days are getting shorter, the nights are getting cooler, and the trees are weighed down with olives. So this is for those of you living in olive country and have experimented with the cured black olives  and cracked green olives in brine and want to try something new. This is an Italian recipe, taken from my friend Nino whose family hail from Italy, and it is currently my favourite way of  making homemade olives, It’s incredibly simple and incredibly good.

All you need is a quantity of fresh cracked green olives, salt, fennel seeds and olive oil.

You can experiment with other spices such a cumin, coriander  or anise. (Try and report back…!)

Now, if your olives are whole, then get a wooden mallet and bash each one till it splits. Once that’s done you are good to go.

Method

• Pack all the cracked green olives into a large container with salt. If you’ve got a lot then add the olives and salt together in batches to make sure they all come in contact.
• Leave them in the salt for 4-5 days. The salt will get very damp as the liquid comes out and the colour of the olives – and the salt  will darken.  Take one, rinse it well and check to see how you like the degree of bitterness. If they are too bitter for your taste, leave them for longer. Keep testing
• Once you are happy with the taste of the olive, give them all a really thorough rinse. You need to remove all the excess salt. Taste them to check.
• Next, optional but recommended, is to remove the olive stones.
• Once that is done, start layering them into small to medium size clean jars with the spices – for example fennel seed. Be really liberal with the seeds. The resulting flavour will be wonderful. Press them down as you go so you leave as little space as possible. Once you reach the top of your jar, pour in olive oil till the olives are covered. Push down on them again to let the air bubbles escape.

And that is it. Close the jars and put them aside for at least a month. The longer you can resist, the better they will be.

After you open them, keep them in the fridge. The olive oil will harden from the cold so remember to take the jar out before you want to eat them.

And don’t for one moment think you are wasting olive oil as you pour it into the jars.  What you get left with has the most fantastic flavour – even more intense and wonderfully infused with fennel. A whole new recipe in itself. Perfect.