Olives
How Not To Muck Them Up
01. Ouverture
The Where, What and How of Olives
Do You like pickles? Pickled olives? Marinaded in olive oil, with spices; or plain ol' olives as a side-dish; do You? Good news.
I love olives. My work lunch is olives and whatever. Literally whatever. Day in, day out it goes. Olives are delicious.
#Olives are the Sriracha of pickles, put them next to anything and they make it palatable at least, if not outright great.
This is not the Bible of Olives, this is more like the Hitchhiker's Guide to Olive-making. Having read this series you'll be more than adequately equipped to pickle any kind of olive or olive-like substance you might encounter on Earth and beyond.
Would you like to be able to pick, pickle and marinade your own olives? Then this is the book for You.
Store-bought olives are made with expedience and cost in mind. They are frequently too salty (salt speeds up the pickling process), under-seasoned (to save up on spices), and generally “meaty”. Tasteless, is one man's opinion.
You can do so much better. Just read on.
02. Getting Good Olives
Do Be Picky-Choosy
You can get your fresh olives at the local farmer's market, or grow an olive tree in your garden; or even encounter them in the wild if you're in the Mediterranean area.
The olives you want are ripe, close to ripe, large, with no blemishes or visible rot. Stems are to be discarded.
So how do you pick your olives?
This depends on whether you're buying them or #picking them from the tree. Buying fresh olives is easy.
Picking from the tree offers multiple choices. If it is a tree in your garden – get an old bed sheet, or a painter's plastic sheet and shake the tree branches. You'll get plenty.
If you happen upon a wild olive tree you can reach out and grab a branch, and then just gently scrape the olive fruits into a bowl or a bag. Be careful not to squash them if they are ripe and squishy.
If, on the other hand—you are shopping the local farmer's market then the olives on offer are probably what you want. The guys take pride in their produce, give them a shot. You can always come back for more, or a different farmer's to get the specific flavour you're after.
Discard the small ones, disfigured ones, the ones that have spots or blemishes. There is no better time to be picky. One rotten olive can muck up the whole batch for you, so get the large ones, get the better-looking ones, get the kind you'd like to see on your plate. This is a bad time to be frugal, and you've been warned.
Next step is to wash them and get rid of all the stems and leaves.
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UPDATE: New book! Manual Flatbread The new book is about Mediterranean cuisine, and is not strictly #paleo.