Have you ever cured olives/want to?

I read an article in the NY Times last year about curing olives at home. I decided to give it a try so I bought both Sevillano and Manzanilla, which came to 20 lbs (they come in 10 lb crates). Enjoyed the activity but way too many olives for one family.
I would like to try it again this year, but would rather tackle more varieties at smaller volumes. So if anyone is interested in splitting a crate or three, we could get several varieties.
It's a fun activity, they taste great and only cost about $2.00 per pound.

Also, I experiemented with several recipies, some worked well others didn't, would be interested in hearing if anyone else out there has cured olives and what worked for them.
thx

dbakkar, I've always *wanted* to cure olives, but never was in the right place at the right time. Unfortunately, I can't take you up on your super offer to co-operate. But pls keep us posted, maybe even with pix? about how it goes. We can live vicariously through you!

Geo
PS. The Univ. of Calif. has a nice pub on making olives here.

Hi,

I would be interested. Before making a final commitment, just let me know later what may be involved. Is it $2/pound before shipping and handling or $2/pound in total? I have seen uncured olives in this area, though they were labeled simply olives without any known pedigree.

Regards,

I decided that it would be "fun" to cure olives a few years back. I called a friend of mine out in California - Melinda Lee, who has a cooking show in SoCal (at the time on KFI-AM). She thought it was a great idea and since I had helped her in the past, she said that she would send me a copy of "how to cure olives" from the University of California.

And after reading the 32 pages which included two lye baths and a variety of other steps that looked pretty scary, I decided that it was cheaper and easier to head to the local Italian or Greek markets.

I have seen uncured olives at the Marketplace on Oakton every year for the past few years. As Cathy2 noted above, the variety was not noted, however, I think their very helpful manager might be able to fill you in.

This has actually come up before on the forum, I'm sorry to say that mine didn't turn out well despite being soaked in salt for over a week, IIRC.

I got impatient, and put them in the flavored Olive Oil too soon, they're still very bitter - though not as bitter as uncured olives.

Last yr I bought the olives through Pena in California. Here is the link, http://greatolives.com/fresh_olives.php
Looks like prices have gone up to $18.00 for 10 lbs + shipping, so it may be worth contacting the Marketplace.

I thought the curing process was fairly easy and I did not use lye. Put the olives in a 5 gallion bucket and cover w water. Change the water every day for about ten days to remove the bitterness (green take longer).

For the actual curing, I did it the old world way, I added salt to water until an egg floated. Then I scored the olives and packed them into jars, added Basil, Oregano etc and covered with the salt water. finally I topped them off with olive oil to keep the air out. After that you just let them sit for several weeks and they are good to go. I tried different spices including adding lemon slices which worked out very well. BTW also tried to dry cure, greek style with only salt but I was the only one who could eat them (way too salty).

Cathy2 if you are interested, check out the link to Pena and let me know what you want to do. Ideally I would like to get at least one type of black and one green. I think if we can get a couple more people involved it may be fun to try more varieties since the process is pretty much the same.

I'm thinking about doing this and sharing the bounty as Holiday gifts this year. I stumbled accross a recipe that looks fairly simple - no lye, but it does require a daily water change for 23 days! So... I need to pick up my uncured olives this coming weekend. I'll make some phone calls this week, but does anyone happen to know if Marketplace on Oakton still carries them? Maybe J.P. Graziano's? Thanks - Lynn

I see them every fall at Caputo in Palatine. FWIW, it was a few weeks ago and have not seen them there recently.

I did a 14 day soaking method that was still too bitter-hopefully the 23 days will do it.

I haven't seen them at Caputo's recently either...

Jeff

When I lived in Israel in the mid-70's, my kibbutz, Beit HaShita, owned an olive factory. Not only did I pick the little buggers off the trees, but I sometimes got stuck working in the "zaytia". We would sit on a bench in front of a conveyor belt and pick out the sticks, rocks, bugs, pits and other non-olive items as they traveled down the line. The olives were cured in huge blue plastic containers, probably similar to the one Drew Peterson allegedly had in his garage. I also worked the line, gluing labels on institutional-sized cans of pickles as they came out of the canning area and before they were placed on pallets.

It took me years before I could eat olives again. So, no, I wouldn't ever want to do it. You can still buy Beit HaShita olives, but the factory was purchased by Osem some years ago.

Suzy

This thread needs a bump. I want to do the salt cure mentioned. I picked up less than a pound of fresh olives today at Valli's produce in Arlington Heights.

This maybe the NY Times piece the original poster references.

Here is a one page instruction sheet on lye curing olives from the University of California Extension:

http://groups.ucanr.org/healthyfuture/files/79754.pdf


Here is an article that Melinda Lee (www.melindalee.com) sent me which qualifies as everything you might want about olives:

http://ucanr.org/freepubs/docs/8267.pdf

I've been wanting to try salt-curing olives after I read an article (http://www1.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/restaurants/090219/) in the Reader about the house-made olives at A Tavola.

I found out about Chaffin Family Orchard in California through Local Harvest awhile back - they sell Barouni green olives in 20 pound boxes for $40.00. The price is okay, but that's a lot of olives. Does anyone know of any other source that sells 5-10 pound boxes? I don't have a car, so some of the markets mentioned previously in the thread would be really hard to get to. Good thing I have plenty of time for recon before olive season comes around again in September.

Thread bump. I think I've gotten over my fear of lye.

pairs4life wrote:Thread bump. I think I've gotten over my fear of lye.

10 lbs of olives are currently in a container in the bathroom in a lye cure. Will keep you posted. I have to tell you it was pretty anti-climatic after I even got a MD friend to give me a face shield in case of lye water splattering.

Hi,

You will be changing the lye every 12 hours, right?

I will be following in your footsteps very soon.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

You will be changing the lye every 12 hours, right?

I will be following in your footsteps very soon.

Regards,

Hopefully, you will only need 12 hours. Many of mine were done but enough weren't so I started the 2nd round this morning, but I don't think it will need another 12 hours. I'm guessing 6 and if I had added more lye last night I think I would be done. I had almost a gallon and a half of water, 22 cups,and added 2 oz of lye. Had I added 3 oz I think they would be done now, but better to have to add lye later versus too much up front I think.
Additionally, like some of the others, I didn't stir it every hour or 2.

Pairs4 and C2—

Would you give us a blow-by-blow of the process? And maybe a photo or two? I can get raw olives in Montréal, and I'm just *dying* to try the process next Fall.

Very kühl!!

Geo

Geo wrote:Pairs4 and C2—

Would you give us a blow-by-blow of the process? And maybe a photo or two? I can get raw olives in Montréal, and I'm just *dying* to try the process next Fall.

Very kühl!!

Geo

Yes. Just let me get through the week. I've had two weeks of trials and motions set every day. Olives are still in lye but some of them are done, yes I've tasted them.

HI,

I found an interesting overview from an experienced olive pickler: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/451709

Regards,

Lye removal from cured olives is now in progress.

It's funny 10 pounds of fresh olives looked like enough olives for a life time, but now that they are cured and being rinsed I wonder if I should order more now.

Still rinsing the olives. The water is close to clear, I'm thinking another 4 8 hours, but I know it could be a week.

I've been thinking about curing my own olives for over a year, if not longer. I do remember originally reading the NY Times piece posted about curing olives here.

Then I read this piece by Hank Shaw on his blog Hunter, Angler, Gardner.

Thinking about how risk-adverse lawyers are( I can say that because I am one) I was confident that if UCLA-Davis' legal department let them post on curing olives with lye from the hardware store, I would be safe with it as long as I followed instructions.

I ordered 20 lbs of Barouni Olives from Chaffin Orchards in California. I didn't want to chance going into Valli's and not finding them there or having to pick them out. When they arrived I thought, my word this is way too many olives so I picked through them and cured about 11 pounds. Some I tossed and the rest went to the highest bidder.

HOUSEHOLD DRAIN CLEANER FOUND IN HARDWARE STORE




Olives are a completely inedible fruit unless cured. Both boudreaulicious and Cathy2 tried raw, uncured olives last week at the Canning-Swap-o-Rama before I could stop them and they can attest to just how goddess-forsaken this fruit is. Still, I'm amazed that humanity decided to find some way to make it edible. Heck, even coyotes and other predators haven't decided how to make a skunk edible.


Not the olives I ordered, but a picture I took of some fresh olives at a local store a year ago. Yes, I've been thinking about this for a while now.

Here are the olives after a day in the lye solution.

Did you know dark olives and green olives all start off green? Reminds me a lot of 1st learning that all babies start off female

The purple and green olive on the left started off green but got more exposure to air than the others. At first this was frightening and freaky because I thought I was going to end up with some speckled and striped olives, although I think that would be a really cool product for kids.

Alistair now says: "they taste of... matter". I gave him one earlier in the week and he swore I was just trying to off him. He spat it out because it was so very, very bitter, I thought it was soapy-tasting, but I knew to look for that taste and he didn't. Lye is used to make soap, so most of us do know what it tastes like...soapy.



Lye removal is evident by taste and clear water. Now it's on to a light brining. If my brining liquid turns pink, then I've still got lye removal going on, but I don't anticipate that.

I chose lye-curing because:

1) I'd tasted a lye-cured olive last year from a friend who is a chef and I thought it was the best olive ever

2) It's the quickest way to get edible olives from the fresh fruit

3) As risk-adverse as I am, I guess there's a bit of an adrenaline rush to be experienced by playing with a potentially harmful chemical and surviving it

4) I finally get to satisfy my jones for putting up something else. Lye-cured and lye-fermented are the only styles of curing olives that are considered safe for pressure canning.

Hi,

I am thinking about drying some of these olives. Convenient to store and allows a three month window.

Regards,

Looking at the Tony's Finer Foods ads for sale items starting tomorrow, http://tonysfinerfood.com/do/viewAd I see some of their stores are offering fresh green olives for $1.49 a pound....hmmmm..

Ron

RonJS wrote:Looking at the Tony's Finer Foods ads for sale items starting tomorrow, http://tonysfinerfood.com/do/viewAd I see some of their stores are offering fresh green olives for $1.49 a pound....hmmmm..

Ron

Yesterday, Valli's in Arlington Heights had them for $1.99/pound. That's the same price I paid, but I had to order 20 lbs from Chaffin Orchard, but Chaffin's looked a lot better.

Hi,

I dried some of the olives. They really shrank down to almost nothing, just a thin sheath around the stone. It sure makes for convenient storage.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

I dried some of the olives. They really shrank down to almost nothing, just a thin sheath around the stone. It sure makes for convenient storage.

Regards,

Food dehydrator?

RonJS wrote:Looking at the Tony's Finer Foods ads for sale items starting tomorrow, http://tonysfinerfood.com/do/viewAd I see some of their stores are offering fresh green olives for $1.49 a pound....hmmmm..

Awfully nice-looking olives (coming from a complete non-expert). Thanks for mentioning Tony's.