A little bit of Italy...?

WGuy and DD have approximately 60 olive trees on their smallholding.  Not big trees, but big enough to bear fruit.  As their relocation to their smallholding is delayed, I asked, and got permission to harvest their olives for them.

We go over to their place every so often to check out that everything is secure, and on one of those visits I noticed that they had olives on their trees.  I was amazed - I thought the trees were still too small - but, there again, I guess they were planted by the previous owner about 3 - 4 years ago.

This is a pic of some of the roughly
60 olives trees on WGuy and DD's
property

When we arrived at their smallholding on the 7th April I immediately noticed that their trees were carrying varying quantities of olives - strange, because they are not on irrigation, and they all depend on the same rainfall.  No matter, RMan and I would just pick the biggest, most mature looking fruit. 

Green, speckled and purple olives on the same tree

It is an incredibly relaxing pastime - picking olives.  Out in the open, the wind gently moving the air, sun on your shoulders and hands working at waist / shoulder level - at this stage.  As the trees get bigger I'm going to have to find another way to harvest the olives...

RMan - before he got impatient... LOL

There were green olives, purple speckled olives, and purple olives.  We picked a total of 3.6 kgs of olives from those trees :)

3kgs was all that would fit in my bowl for this
weigh in

I instinctively decided to separate the colours - or is that the organised person (a.k.a. control freak) in me coming out (again)...?  I subsequently discovered that the green and black olives should be processed differently - ah well, next year...

The preparation method I used is as follows:

The olives were rinsed.

The olives after being sorted into their different colours

To remove the initial bitterness which is inherent to freshly picked olives, the flesh of the purple olives were slashed  - I left the green ones whole.  They were then placed in containers and covered with plain water - using a upturned plate, plastic bag filled with water, or whatever, to ensure that all the olives are underwater.  This water is changed daily for 14 days.  Rinse the olives again.

Then make a brine solution - basically you add salt to water until an egg floats.

The mixture of salt and water should be strong
enough to float an egg

 Put the olives in your warm sterile jars and fill with the brine solution...

The olives in their jars, totally covered with the
brine solution

... in order to ensure that there was a little air as possible in the jars I overfilled them.  Messy, but it was an easy way to ensure that the olives were going to be totally submerged.

The jars were filled to the brim with brine - can
you see the last tiny air bubble at 12 o'clock just
at the end of the one cut in the olive?

 Pop the lid on...

They will now sit in the brine solution for 6 - 9 weeks

... and then leave the olives in the brine solution for 6 - 9 weeks.  This helps to remove the last of the bitterness.  At 6 weeks taste an olive - if it is still bitter tasting, allow the olives to remain in the brine solution longer.  Taste weekly.  When they seem ready, rinse the olives and then add vinegar ( wine, red wine, apple cider - whatever is your preference) to water at a ratio of 1:3 (vinegar to water).

Being adventurous, I am going to leave 2 jars plain.  Another jar or two will get some rosemary sprigs added, another garlic, and another some chillies.  [I have just been given two pepperdews by one of our neighbours.  They are a mild sweet pepper which scores 1177 on the Scoville scale - it's just enough to leave a burning sensation on your lips if you decide to taste it raw like I did LOL, but definitely mild enough to add to food - even raw.  I added them to a corn and red capsicum relish that I made, and I reserved the seeds.  I'll plant those next spring and add them to next years' olives :)  ]

Pepperdews information one them can be found
here and here

Then the olives in the vinegar solution jars will be covered with enough olive oil to make the contents impervious to air.  This will prevent mould forming.

The olives will be allowed to stand in the vinegar solution for another 4 - 6 weeks before we taste them.

I'll let you know what they taste like after roughly 12 - 15 weeks from commencing with this - which will be between the 6th - 27th July  :)