"Treating" black olives ...

[mpprh]

Talking of cherry / olive pitters reminded me of this.

Normally, green olives are marinaded in caustic soda, rinsed then stored in brine and black olives are packed in salt, then stored in brine or olive oil.

Last year we were a bit busy, didn't get round to preserving any green olives and had a lot of black ones in December.

I had about 2kg of untreated black olives in a cardboard box left over from treatment that I had forgotten about. The box was stored outdoors, but dry.

In May, I found them! They had dried and were small and wrinkly. A dubious tasting proved that they were excellent to eat.

I've been serving them with aperitifs as "sun dried" olives.

Peter

[thumbelina]

They sound fabulous, Peter!

Were they kept in a shed or something? And was there newspaper inbetween the layers of olives or just all shoved in together, please?

[mpprh]

They were all chucked in together, and the box was outdoors, on a covered terrace.

Saves all that messing about ?

Peter

[thumbelina]

Damn right it does! And they sound SCRUMMY!