Friday, November 19, 2010

Home-Cured Olives

The olives have been soaking in salt water for six weeks now. For the first ten days, they soaked in plain water which was changed daily. After that, they soaked in a heavy brine for several weeks. Every Sunday, I rinsed the olives off and dumped out the old brine. Then I dumped an entire box of kosher salt into the barrel and filled it up with water several inches past the olives and mixed it all together. I placed a glass plate on top to hold the olives underwater, and used a mason jar filled with fresh water as a weight.

Today I filled up a mason jar with olives, then covered them in water. Every hour or two I changed the water so the salt could leach out. They tasted pretty good after that! Now they're covered in 50% red wine vinegar, 50% water, and five chopped garlic cloves. I don't know if they'll be ready by tomorrow, but I'll give it a shot! The rest of the olives will get packed up into mason jars (in heavy brine for longer preservation), then stored in the back of the second fridge. They should last quite a while, I hope. A fun project. Next year, I'd love to try salt curing and drying black olives.

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