street-picked, home pickled olives

working with information from websites and a variety of italians, i have bottled the olives i picked on a busy public street not far from home: the local nonnas had already picked everything they could at their altitude, so i enlisted the support of Tall Guy to gather the loftier fruit.

fresh black or green olives
salt
water
sterilised glass jars with lids (wash jars and lids with hot water and soap, rinse well then cover with water and boil, allow to dry on clean paper towels: OR wash and rinse then place jars on tea towels in a low (80-100C) oven for 15 minutes, checking that the towels don't burn)

rinse olives, separate the green and black ones if necessary (they have different soaking times, so need to be soaked separately). and discard any soft or damaged olives. make two lengthways cuts into each olive, down to the stone.

put the prepared olives into jars until the jar is two-thirds full; cover the olives with lightly salted water (1tbs per litre). fill a small plastic bag with a few tablespoons of water, tie it at the top with a rubber band and sit it on the olives to keep them under the water. seal the jar with the lid. change the water with more lightly salted water every day (black olives = 4 days; green olives = 6 days).

after the initial soaking period (which rids the olives of the oleuropein, the phenolic compound that makes olives bitter), fill the jars with brine (1/3c salt to 1 litre of water). the salt will dissolve more easily if the water is hot, but allow it to cool before pouring onto the olives.

include some herbs and spices at this point: bay leaves, dried chillis, oregano, whatever you like. pour a small splash over the top of the olives in the jar, and sit another small bag of water on top to keep the olives immersed. seal the jars, then leave them for 5 weeks. after that, your olives are ready to eat. your olives should last for months in either the brine or drained and transferred to olive oil. keep in the fridge particularly if your sterilisation process was not rigorous.