Curing Olives
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Last year i cured olives from my olive tree in brine as per your recipe but they taste bitter. is there some way of preventing them from tasting this bitter or does this have to do with the type of olive?
thank you
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Dear Pauline
I'm sorry that your olives tasted bitter - perhaps your olives were slightly under ripe? they shouldn't be too hard when you cure them - an olive is like any other fruit, it has to be ripe. So although green olives are perfect to cure in brine -they should be ripe green olives which means they give slightly when pressed.
Other wise, once you remove them from the brine and find that they are too salty or bitter, try soaking them in fresh water - changing the water every day - for about three or four days.
Matty cremona
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Thanks Matty, i will consider the ripeness factor next time (I picked this year's only last Sunday!). The thing is once you start picking them - and there are so many of them - you do not stop to consider whether each one has ripened. In the meantime I have been doing some research and apparently it is the 'oleuropein' which makes them bitter and this is released when the olives are left to soak and water changed regularly. So I think your advice to soak them in water after removing them from brine is very sound indeed. Thank you