OLIVES—SOME FOR EATING, MOST FOR OIL

 

Ben knocking olives into a tarp. Ten minutes later, the wind caught the tarp and dumped the olives into the brambles! Still, we took 70 kilos to the mill, and more to pick! 

It finally rained! Not enough to end the drought, but enough to plump the olives. Time to get picking. First, I pick enough fat Manzanilla olives to fill an earthenware jar, for curing for table olives. Next, my crew—son, Ben—starts the recogida of olives to take to the mill. 

To produce good oil, olives need to get to the mill as soon as possible. If they pile up in bins or sacks, they start to ferment/rot and the oil is not worth pressing. I learned the hard way—sacks of olives, laboriously picked, rejected by the guys at the mill. I also remember the really bad olive oil and its pervasive, funky smell from 40 or 50 years ago, before producers learned that the best, fruitiest, oil does not depend on variety, but on the freshness of the olives. 

Ben delivered our first picking, about 70 kilos of olives, to a nearby mill, garnering us a vale for seven liters of virgin olive oil. When we take the remainder, we’ll come home with new oil. The price of olive oil has soared this year—I paid almost €50 at the grocery store for a five-liter jug last month—so our oil, the fruit of out labors, will save on the grocery bill. 

Cracking olives to cure for eating.

I’m curing the table olives in the old-fashioned way that I learned years ago in the pueblo where I live. The olives are first cracked by hand, just to split them open, soaked in several changes of water until their bitterness is gone and, finally, left in a brine with thyme, fennel, lemon and garlic for a few weeks. 

Draining olives, ready for herbs and brine.

These brine-cured olives can be purchased at markets in Spain, but are not widely exported, I think because they have a shorter shelf-life than commercially produced bottled/canned olives. 

Commercially-made olives, both black and green, are hand-picked when still green and unripe. The curing process entails first soaking in an alkaline solution to remove the bitterness. For black olives, they are allowed to oxidize and darken and the black color is fixed with a ferrous gluconate solution. Then the olives are left in a brine to ferment, which converts the olives’ natural sugars into lactic acid. This is what gives them that wonderful tangy flavor. They are canned or bottled whole and unpitted, pitted and stuffed.

If store-bought bottled green olives are all you can get, I suggest marinating them with garlic and herbs to add some of the traditional flavor. Here’s how, plus a recipe for an olive sauce that can be made with any green olive.

Store-bought Manzanilla olives have been marinated a few days with thyme, fennel, garlic and lemon to give them the taste of traditional, home-cured olives.

Green olive sauce makes a terrific accompaniment to grilled swordfish. 

Marinade for Olives

Aliño para Aceitunas

Use “Seville,” Manzanilla, Gordal or any other green, pitted olive. Drain off their liquid (save it for salad dressings or to brine a chicken before roasting) and marinate the olives with herbs, Andalusian style. Use fresh thyme and wild fennel stems, if available. Otherwise, substitute dried thyme and fennel seeds.

Thyme, fennel, garlic, lemon.

20-ounce jar of pitted Manzanilla olives

2 teaspoons salt

3 cloves garlic, slivered

3 lemon wedges

Sprigs of fresh thyme or ¼ teaspoon dried thyme

Piece of wild fennel stem or 1/8 teaspoon fennel seeds

½ tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Drain the olives. There should be about 2 cups of drained olives. Place them in a bowl and cover with water. Soak for 10 minutes and drain them.

Place 2 cups of water in a clean jar. Add the salt and stir to dissolve it. Place some of the olives in the jar, add some of the slivers of garlic and a lemon wedge, sprig of thyme and fennel. Add more olives, garlic, etc. Repeat, using all of the olives. Add the olive oil. 

Let the jar of olives set in a cool, dark place for 24 hours. Use a wooden spoon to stir the contents. Leave 48 hours more, stirring once a day. Olives are ready to eat at this point. Store them refrigerated. 

Green Olive Sauce

Salsa de Aceitunas Verdes

Olives added to tomato sauce give a special tang.

Olives give this simple tomato sauce a tangy edge that complements fish and many kinds of meat. It is especially good with grilled swordfish, tuna or octopus, with lamb chops or steak. 

Use any kind of pitted green olive, chopped or sliced, for the sauce. If using the herb-marinated olives, in the above recipe, they will have the thyme and fennel flavors. Otherwise, add those herbs to the sauce. Use salt sparingly, as brined olives will contribute more salt. 

4 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup finely chopped onions

2 cloves minced garlic

¼ cup white wine

1 cup grated tomato pulp

½ teaspoon salt

Sprig of fennel or fennel seeds (optional)

Sprig of thyme (optional) 

1 cup drained and chopped pitted olives

3 tablespoons chopped parsley

Heat the oil in a skillet and sauté the onions on medium heat until softened, 5 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté 2 minutes more. Add the wine and cook off the alcohol, 1 minute. Add the tomato pulp, salt and fennel and thyme, if using. Cook the sauce, stirring occasionally, until reduced, about 15 minutes. Stir in the olives and cook gently 4 minutes. Immediately before serving the sauce, stir in the parsley.

How olive oil is made; Olives to Oil.

More recipes with olives:

Olive, Anchovy, Pickled Pepper Pincho (Gilda).

Tomato-Tuna Salad with Black Olives.

Potato-Orange Salad with Black Olives.

Green Olive Spread (Olivada).

Olive-Cream Cheese Dip.

Black Olive, Corn and Avocado Salsa.

Potato-Olive Salad.

Chicken Breasts with Sevilla Olive Sauce.

Grilled Duck Breast with Olive Sauce.

Moroccan Cauliflower-Olive Salad.

Chicken Marbella with Olives.

Shrimp Salad with Empeltre Olives.

Milled Olive Spread.

Tartare Sauce with Seaweed and Olives.

Chicken Tagine with Lemons and Olives.

Black Olive Tapenade.