Thick, green olives from Italians or Greeks are a treat. How lucky when the self-grown olive tree finally bears fruit and you can pickle this delicacy yourself. But beware: freshly picked olives are very bitter and therefore inedible. If you want to make a tasty treat out of it, you need a lot of patience and instinct - but the effort is worth it.
Flush out bitter substances
Before you can marinate your freshly picked olives as you wish, you must first make them edible and flush out the bitter substances. This is done by soaking the fresh olives in water, which takes at least 10 days to wash out, but usually four to six weeks - depending on how bitter you like your olives. You should place the pitted olives in a plastic, glass or ceramic container, weigh them down with a plate and cover them with water. Put the container in a dark place and change the water daily. It is also important to cut or squeeze the olives several times before watering them.
preserve olives
Only when the olives have lost their bitterness can you preserve them. To do this, place the watered olives in either brine or caustic soda.
Prepare brine in the following way:
- Add 100 grams of coarse sea salt per liter of water
- and the juice and grated zest of one (unwaxed) lemon.
- Boil the mixture and let it cool.
- Place the olives in a ceramic pot and fill with the lye.
- Finish with a thick layer of olive oil. This prevents the ingress of germs and mold.
- Keep the pot in a cool and dark place.
Olives preserved in this way can be preserved for about one to two years. You can also add herbs, onions and garlic as well as chopped vegetables (carrot slices, cauliflower florets, etc.) to the lye.
Marinate for delicious taste
After many, many weeks, the time has finally come: your self-pickled olives are ready to be eaten. You can marinate them beforehand, so you get pickled olives like in Greece or Italy. You do not need to chop the vegetables or only chop them coarsely, and the seasoned olives are marinated in either oil or vinegar. You should leave them in the marinade for about a week.
Ideas for delicious marinade (calculated for each 500 grams of green or black olives)
- Herb Garlic Marinade
(2 chillies, 4 sprigs of thyme, 3 sprigs of rosemary, 2 bay leaves, 4 cloves of garlic, fill with olive oil) - Garlic Pepper Marinade
(1 chopped onion, 1 chilli, 1 diced red pepper, 4 cloves of garlic, 1 bunch of flat-leaf parsley, top with olive oil. Mix in the diced feta cheese before serving.) - Olives in red wine vinegar
(chopped onion, 4 cloves of garlic, 5 bay leaves, 2 sprigs of rosemary, add 150 milliliters of red wine vinegar) - Olives with capers and fennel
(80 grams of capers, 6 sprigs of thyme, 1 chilli, 1 clove of garlic, 1 teaspoon each of oregano and fennel seeds, some pepper, pour olive oil over it)
Olives taste great with various dishes, with hearty bread or in fresh salads. Anchovy fillets and feta cheese go particularly well with it.
tips and tricks
Use empty plastic water bottles to water the olives - this makes it particularly easy to change the water every day.
The garden journal freshness ABC
How can fruit and vegetables be stored correctly so that they stay fresh for as long as possible?
The garden journal freshness ABC as a poster:
- as a free PDF file to print out yourself