It's now been two months with the fresh-off-the-tree green olives in the brine. The brine is tasting awesomely good, the flesh of the olives is getting to that perfect consistency. They are, however, still bitter. I'll try them again at the end of August.
Here's the first two posts about this years' fresh olives:
First one
Second one
The whole idea with this batch was to lessen the brining time (6 months) down to one or two months --without using lye. Looks like it'll be 3 to 4 months. Still, better than six months, eh?
A polynesian feast menu coming soon!!!!
Showing posts with label olives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label olives. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
My Olives Need More Time
Yes, time. Not thyme, but time.
Remember when I got some fresh green olives at the end of June? Normally they take 4 or 5 months of curing in brine to be really tasty and I thought maybe I'd found a shortcut?
Well, after a month the brine they are in tastes awesomely good, but the olives are still bitter and tough.
So I'll leave them in the brine for two more months and let you know at the end of August how they are, no worries.
Remember when I got some fresh green olives at the end of June? Normally they take 4 or 5 months of curing in brine to be really tasty and I thought maybe I'd found a shortcut?
Well, after a month the brine they are in tastes awesomely good, but the olives are still bitter and tough.
So I'll leave them in the brine for two more months and let you know at the end of August how they are, no worries.
Monday, June 1, 2009
How To Prepare Fresh Green Olives --updated
It's the tail end of the olive cropping season down here in South Oz. That means I can pop down to the local grocery store and get loads of fresh, right-off-the-tree, green olives at a very cheap price --don't even have to hit any of the farmer markets around (but I'll be doing that this weekend for other goodies).
Ahhhhhh...
I'll pause for a moment while you all wipe the drool off your collective keyboards.
.
.
.
Ok, pause over.
Did you know that olive trees grow very very very very well down in South Oz. So well, in fact, that if they escape a grove they are considered a pest plant. Why? Cus they out-compete the native trees and bushes, that's why. When I win that thar $20M dollar lottery I WILL have an olive grove --well looked after, of course.
Most of the jarred olives in a regular grocery store down here come from Spain. Why? Cus the Spainish Govt massively subsidises their industry so it's cheap and they have a nice trade agreement with Australia. The downside is that ALL olives processed in Spain use lye. So even though the Spainish ones are plentiful and cheap, I don't like the processing process (I just HAD to type that: processing process!!!!).
This time of year is great since this is olive harvesting season so I can get local, fresh, raw olives and cure them how I like. That means using the traditional brine method which takes longer than the lye method but you don't have to worry about dealing with poison.
The first time I cured olives they were ready in about 6 months (I used a very light brine). They were also the BEST OLIVES I'VE EVER TASTED!!!! The flesh was firm, not squishy, very meat-like. The flavour... OMG the FLAVOUR!
This year I've bought a few kilos of fresh olives so that I can have them throughout the year.
But I don't want to wait
s
i
x
l
o
n
g
m
o
n
t
h
s
!
Fortunately I've found a shorcut so the olives only take a month! And it only involves water and salt. Without either of which we'd all die quickly. So let's hear it for water and salt! Yah!
Here's what you do:
Take your fresh green olives (BTW black and green olives are the same beast, the black ones are just left on the tree longer) and rinse them well. Oh, when selecting them you want to sort through the bins and pick the brightest ones you can find --no, giving them an IQ test won't help, ahem.
They should look something like this:
Give them suckers a good rinse and then put em in some clean jars. You don't need to worry about sealing them tight like canning cus you are going to be opening them every day.
I like to use jars that either narrow towards the top or have a smaller opening than the rest of the jar. Why? Cus olives float and you want them to be a submerged as possible.
You can get a lot of olives out of only 600 grams!
Next, you fill each jar with plain water up to the top. Let it sit for 5 days and change the water each day.
THEN you brine them. And in a month they'll be ready! I'm using two different brines, one is a 5% brine and the other will be my brine from my latest batch of feta cheese ---mmmmmmmmm.
But dave, how do I make a 5% brine solution?
Easy. I used my kitchen scales and my awesome mathematical ability to come up with this: 4 cups water plus 2 and 1/2 tablespoons of sea salt. Stir till the salt is dissolved.
I'll be brining (or curing) the olives tomorrow as they been in the water soaking (fresh water each day!) for 5 days now. I'll let you know in a month how they've turned out.
********UPDATE***********
Oct 8, 2009
Well, it's been 4 months now and it looks like this'll take the 6 months as before. So it seems that the trick I read about of the soaking and rinsing for 5 days doesn't work.
However, the stronger the brine is the quicker the olives will be ready. The 5% brine takes about 6 months, and I checked the ones from my feta brine (3 to 4%) and they'll take probably 8 months.
Sooooooooo, next season I'll do 3 batches; a 15% brine, a 10%, and a 5%. That way I should get good olives after 2 or 3 months and then enough from the other 2 brines to last through the spring and summer.
Ahhhhhh...
I'll pause for a moment while you all wipe the drool off your collective keyboards.
.
.
.
Ok, pause over.
Did you know that olive trees grow very very very very well down in South Oz. So well, in fact, that if they escape a grove they are considered a pest plant. Why? Cus they out-compete the native trees and bushes, that's why. When I win that thar $20M dollar lottery I WILL have an olive grove --well looked after, of course.
Most of the jarred olives in a regular grocery store down here come from Spain. Why? Cus the Spainish Govt massively subsidises their industry so it's cheap and they have a nice trade agreement with Australia. The downside is that ALL olives processed in Spain use lye. So even though the Spainish ones are plentiful and cheap, I don't like the processing process (I just HAD to type that: processing process!!!!).
This time of year is great since this is olive harvesting season so I can get local, fresh, raw olives and cure them how I like. That means using the traditional brine method which takes longer than the lye method but you don't have to worry about dealing with poison.
The first time I cured olives they were ready in about 6 months (I used a very light brine). They were also the BEST OLIVES I'VE EVER TASTED!!!! The flesh was firm, not squishy, very meat-like. The flavour... OMG the FLAVOUR!
This year I've bought a few kilos of fresh olives so that I can have them throughout the year.
But I don't want to wait
s
i
x
l
o
n
g
m
o
n
t
h
s
!
Fortunately I've found a shorcut so the olives only take a month! And it only involves water and salt. Without either of which we'd all die quickly. So let's hear it for water and salt! Yah!
Here's what you do:
Take your fresh green olives (BTW black and green olives are the same beast, the black ones are just left on the tree longer) and rinse them well. Oh, when selecting them you want to sort through the bins and pick the brightest ones you can find --no, giving them an IQ test won't help, ahem.
They should look something like this:
Give them suckers a good rinse and then put em in some clean jars. You don't need to worry about sealing them tight like canning cus you are going to be opening them every day.
I like to use jars that either narrow towards the top or have a smaller opening than the rest of the jar. Why? Cus olives float and you want them to be a submerged as possible.
You can get a lot of olives out of only 600 grams!
Next, you fill each jar with plain water up to the top. Let it sit for 5 days and change the water each day.
THEN you brine them. And in a month they'll be ready! I'm using two different brines, one is a 5% brine and the other will be my brine from my latest batch of feta cheese ---mmmmmmmmm.
But dave, how do I make a 5% brine solution?
Easy. I used my kitchen scales and my awesome mathematical ability to come up with this: 4 cups water plus 2 and 1/2 tablespoons of sea salt. Stir till the salt is dissolved.
I'll be brining (or curing) the olives tomorrow as they been in the water soaking (fresh water each day!) for 5 days now. I'll let you know in a month how they've turned out.
********UPDATE***********
Oct 8, 2009
Well, it's been 4 months now and it looks like this'll take the 6 months as before. So it seems that the trick I read about of the soaking and rinsing for 5 days doesn't work.
However, the stronger the brine is the quicker the olives will be ready. The 5% brine takes about 6 months, and I checked the ones from my feta brine (3 to 4%) and they'll take probably 8 months.
Sooooooooo, next season I'll do 3 batches; a 15% brine, a 10%, and a 5%. That way I should get good olives after 2 or 3 months and then enough from the other 2 brines to last through the spring and summer.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Olivemite; a precursor to Olive Tapenade
This post originally appeared in my other blog about 2 and a half years ago. It was about vegemite and olivemite. Keep in mind at that point in time I'd never heard of olive tapenade, ahem. I've taken the parts out of the post that don't pertain to food, and I've softened the edges of some not-so-nice words.
Happy Little Vegemite!
Vegemite... I'm sure all of you up in the "other hemisphere" have heard the term: Vegemite
There was a telly commercial yonks ago down here with a couple of happy, sappy ankle-biters singing a song,"...We're happy little vegemites..." It was in black and white so down here that means in the early '80's. Not really, 50's I believe.
In case you are interested, Kraft (tm) now owns Vegemite. They were going to try to compete with it down here with their own version, but they just decided to buy the company and keep the name and recipe as Vegemite. Pretty darned shrewd marketing, eh?
So, like what the hell is Vegemite? Yes, I heard you ask that! Not only can I see in the dark, but I can peer into cyberspace too.
Vegemite is "Concentrated Yeast Extract". And it's a dark brown colour (color). And it has a VERY strong flavor (flavour). And it's "one of the world's richest sources of Vitamin B". And it has a VERY strong flavour (flavor). Did I mention that it is strong tasting?
It should be used as a spread on toast or a sandwich (usually with butter --in fact, the butter in our butter dish has brown streaks in it... FROM THE VEGEMITE YOU PERVERTS!!!!) It should not be used as a "dip" as some dipsticks in the US do when they are first presented with a jar of Vegemite. If you use it as a "dip", then you will HATE it for the rest of your life and all of your future lives too. Forewarned you are.
Remember all the stuff about Vegemite earlier? Well, this is called Olivemite. As much as I'd like to take credit for the name, I can't. A few months ago myself and The Most Wonderful Woman In The Entire World were driving through Mclaren Vale --it's a great place, over a hundred wineries right at the doorstep! Take a note, dave: blog about wineries soon.
Anyways, we stopped at an olive shop to get some specialty olives and we noticed they had a jar of something labeled Olivemite. It was bloody-well GREAT! Bought some --wee-hoo! Had a look at the ingredients later on and I thought to myself, "Dang, I can make that! And it won't cost much either."
So, here is how to make dave's Olivemite
What you need:
200 grams (just under a cup) of pitted Kalamata Olives***
1-2 heads roasted garlic
olive oil
*** Don't use regular black olives... It will taste like shit (seriously, I tried!) if you do --you've been warned
What you do:
This is simple. Chuck it all into a food processor and process it till it's done. The more olive oil you add the creamier it is.
Your taste buds will thank me for this one, guaranteed.
Here's a little something I've just added that's not in the original post: to turn the olivemite into olive tapenade, just add a bit of lemon juice, a few capers, an anchovy fillet (or a bit of anchovy paste) to the food processor, no worries. A bit of ground black pepper if you'd like.
There are as many ways to make olive tapenade as there are provinces that border the Mediterranean Sea --that's where it's from, BTW. So don't think that mine is THE way to make it cus there are literally hundreds of authentic olive tapenade recipes. Have fun and experiment! I'd be trying some tarragon first.
Happy Little Vegemite!
Vegemite... I'm sure all of you up in the "other hemisphere" have heard the term: Vegemite
There was a telly commercial yonks ago down here with a couple of happy, sappy ankle-biters singing a song,"...We're happy little vegemites..." It was in black and white so down here that means in the early '80's. Not really, 50's I believe.
In case you are interested, Kraft (tm) now owns Vegemite. They were going to try to compete with it down here with their own version, but they just decided to buy the company and keep the name and recipe as Vegemite. Pretty darned shrewd marketing, eh?
So, like what the hell is Vegemite? Yes, I heard you ask that! Not only can I see in the dark, but I can peer into cyberspace too.
Vegemite is "Concentrated Yeast Extract". And it's a dark brown colour (color). And it has a VERY strong flavor (flavour). And it's "one of the world's richest sources of Vitamin B". And it has a VERY strong flavour (flavor). Did I mention that it is strong tasting?
It should be used as a spread on toast or a sandwich (usually with butter --in fact, the butter in our butter dish has brown streaks in it... FROM THE VEGEMITE YOU PERVERTS!!!!) It should not be used as a "dip" as some dipsticks in the US do when they are first presented with a jar of Vegemite. If you use it as a "dip", then you will HATE it for the rest of your life and all of your future lives too. Forewarned you are.
Remember all the stuff about Vegemite earlier? Well, this is called Olivemite. As much as I'd like to take credit for the name, I can't. A few months ago myself and The Most Wonderful Woman In The Entire World were driving through Mclaren Vale --it's a great place, over a hundred wineries right at the doorstep! Take a note, dave: blog about wineries soon.
Anyways, we stopped at an olive shop to get some specialty olives and we noticed they had a jar of something labeled Olivemite. It was bloody-well GREAT! Bought some --wee-hoo! Had a look at the ingredients later on and I thought to myself, "Dang, I can make that! And it won't cost much either."
So, here is how to make dave's Olivemite
What you need:
200 grams (just under a cup) of pitted Kalamata Olives***
1-2 heads roasted garlic
olive oil
*** Don't use regular black olives... It will taste like shit (seriously, I tried!) if you do --you've been warned
What you do:
This is simple. Chuck it all into a food processor and process it till it's done. The more olive oil you add the creamier it is.
Your taste buds will thank me for this one, guaranteed.
Here's a little something I've just added that's not in the original post: to turn the olivemite into olive tapenade, just add a bit of lemon juice, a few capers, an anchovy fillet (or a bit of anchovy paste) to the food processor, no worries. A bit of ground black pepper if you'd like.
There are as many ways to make olive tapenade as there are provinces that border the Mediterranean Sea --that's where it's from, BTW. So don't think that mine is THE way to make it cus there are literally hundreds of authentic olive tapenade recipes. Have fun and experiment! I'd be trying some tarragon first.
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