INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

To salt cure ripe olives:  Use small unbruised black or purplish-black
olives.  Cover bottom of clean slatted wooden box (such as a fruit lug or a
flat rectangular basket with a double layer of cheesecloth. Rinse olives in
cold water and put a layer on bottom of box. Cover damp olives with a layer
of uniodized or pickling salt. (For each pound of olives, you'll need at
least a pound of salt for the monthlong process.) Repeat layering olives
and salt, then cover the entire batch with a final layer of salt and
another piece of cloth. Set box into a tray or cardboard box so that the
liquid that seeps out will not stain the countertop or floor; store in cool
basement or garge and let stand one week. After a week, uncover and
transfer olives and salt to another container. Re-layer olives with
additional salt in the same cloth-lined box for about three to four days.
Repeat layering and salting olives every four days for one month, using new
salt each time, until olives are wrinkled and lose enough bitterness to be
edible.  (If any mold appears on the olives, rinse mold off with cold water
and soak olives in bowl of distilled white vinegar for one hour, then
return to salt. Otherwise, there is no need to rinse the olives in water
before returning them to the salt cure.) In batches, remove cured olives
from salt; place them in a large strainer or a colander. Dip strainer or
colander into saucepan of boiling water for a few seconds. Drain blanched
olives and rinse with cold tap water. (Repeat this step with remaining
olives, changing boiling water whenever it gets too salty-after about every
12th dip.) Spread olives out on paper towels to dry for a few hours or
overnight.  Place olives in jars and cover with olive oil. If desired, mix
in herbs, hot peppers, garlic, vinegar, or grated orange or lemon rind.
Store sealed jars in the refrigerator.  The olives will keep for at least
one month.  Dry-cured olives may also stored in new salt in airtight
containers for up to six months in the refrigerator. Before using
salt-stored olives, rinse and dry the fruits.
To brine cure green or ripe olives:  Use mature fully colored green or
dark-red to purplish-black olives. The ripe olives may fade in color during
curing but they will darken again when exposed to air. With small knife,
slash each olive to its pit three times. Rinse in water. Place rinsed and
drained olives in one-quart glass jars, filling them 3/4 full. Cover the
olives with a brine containing 3/4 cup uniodized or pickling salt dissolved
in a gallon of water. Insert a small, sealed food-storage bag filled with
1/4 cup water into each jar to keep olives immersed in brine. Screw on the
lid loosely and refrigerate. After one week, replace the brine with a
mixture of 1 2/3 cups salt per gallon of water. After 15 days replace the
brine with another mixture of 1 2/3 cups salt per gallon of water. Replace
the brine at 1-month intervals for additional two to three months. If you
keep the olives airtight in brine, you can store them for at least one
year.  You can eat these olives within two months if you like fairly-bitter
olives. Use them for cooking or season them for appetizers. To rduce their
saltiness, soak the olives in fresh water three days. Store any uneaten
desalted olives in the refrigerator in a solution of one part red or white
wine vinegar to two parts water and float a layer of olive oil on top to
preserve them.
From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini

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