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| Tools used plus a long plastic pipe, plastic gloves, and dish towels |
Find a local grower or pick your own olives. This recipe is for a 5-gallon bucket of green olives which are relatively the same size and green in color, are freshly picked, washed, and stems removed.
Place the green olives in a plastic tote which will hold 10-gallons of liquid.
In a clean 5-gallon plastic bucket fill 3/4 of the bucket with cold water. Add 12 oz. of Lye 100% into the bucket of water (follow safety instructions on Lye container) for jumbo olives and 10 oz of Lye for medium to small. Stir water with plastic pipe to help dissolve the lye in the water. Add more water to bucket to fill to the top. Carefully pour lye water into plastic tote.
Get a cotton dish towel and gently place on top of green olives. Use plastic pipe to help arrange the dish towel in the tote as seen above. Record time you added lye into olives and start your count down. Start testing your olives with the "V" cut after 6-hours of curing. I have found it is better to start testing the olives early. Then at least every 1-hours before they should be cured. Testing: Select an olive (wear gloves), rinse the olive with water, cut a "V" into the olive meat and remove the "V" section to see if the meat has been cooked to the olive pit. The olives are cured when the meat is easily removed from the pit. After doing this you will be able to fine tune how much time you need to leave the olives cooking in the lye.
Once the meat is cooked to the pit carefully remove the towels and the lye water; add cold water into the tote. I add at least 3" of water above the olives. I will rinse the olives at least 3-times a day (remove water add fresh water). After 10-days the water will start to clear up. At this point I will taste an olive to test if the bitter taste is gone. If not continue to drain, rinse, and add fresh cold water. Once you are satisfied with the results drain, rinse, add cold water and add brine (salt water). In a 5-gallon bucket of cold water dissolve 1-cup of salt and pour over green olives.
Enjoy.
Update 10.27.14:
I accidentally over cooked my green olives this year...Now what? I pureed the overcooked pitted green olives and have used it as a substitute for butter when making flour tortillas.
For the chunky base left over from the puree...I will make a green olive pesto or add to my green olive tamales.
UPDATE: 11.14.2015
Last year I over cooked my first batch of green olives and I followed my recipe which I have followed for years, so I was quite surprised. This year I decide to start checking my olives after 6-hours of curing and they are almost cooked. I did one thing different because I was short with time this past week. I stored my olives in cold water outside for a week. I don't think that had anything to do with them cooking more quickly...I think the Lye is stronger....you might want to use less Lye.
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Wow what a process it is to cure green olives. You have provided excellent photos and descriptions make it easy to learn. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome!
ReplyDeleteFinished product looks delicious. My question is, did you use food grade plastic? You describe the one with the blue handles as a plastic tote. My brother-in-law (RIP) used to cure olives. He used large stoneware crocks.
ReplyDeleteGood question! The tote's I use have #5 in the triangle.
ReplyDelete