Pickling recipe

Olives can be pickled when they are green or black (a black olive is just a ripe olive).

There are many different ways of pickling olives, one of the simplest (tested in Parisian area) is :

1. Beat the skin: hit the olive with a hammer. This allows the water and salt to penetrate the fruit, and draw about the bitterness.

2. Place the olives into a bucket of clean water. All the olives must be under the liquid.

3. Pour the liquid away each day and replace with fresh  water. Repeat the washing process for about 7 days. When the bitterness has nearly gone, the olives are ready for the final salting.

4. Place the olives into a bucket of clean water and dissolve one cup of coarse salt into every ten cups of water. Store for two weeks in a cool cupboard.

You can add pepper, thyme, garlic, bay leaves ….

No further preparation is required.