{"id":58732,"date":"2009-11-09T04:00:29","date_gmt":"2009-11-09T09:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nourishedkitchen.com\/?p=2610"},"modified":"2009-11-09T04:00:29","modified_gmt":"2009-11-09T09:00:29","slug":"home-cured-olives-moroccan-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/58732","title":{"rendered":"Home-cured Olives: Moroccan Style"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"barouni-olives\"<\/a>Home-cured olives – seasoned with chilies, lemon and North African spices – have finally made their way into our kitchen, and happily so.\u00a0 Not too long ago, we received a beautiful box of freshly harvested, green-ripe barouni olives<\/a> from Chaffin Family Orchards<\/em> out of California.\u00a0\u00a0 Since then we’ve patiently waited and waited for our olives to lose their soapy bitterness and gain a saltiness spiked by hot peppers, lemon and garlic.<\/p>\n

Olives are among our favorite foods.\u00a0 They enjoy a rich heritage having been cultivated across the middle east and Mediterranean region for thousands of years.\u00a0 Though olive oil has always been prized both for grooming and culinary uses, my love rests with the well-spiced and wonderfully salty fruit.\u00a0 Olives are rich in mono-unsaturated fat, vitamin E and polyphenols which account for the fruit’s strong, bitter flavor.\u00a0 A good soaking in brine and spices tempers the olive’s natural bitterness.<\/p>\n

In preparing my batch of olives at home, I chose to water cure them – as it’s a relatively faster approach to olive curing and, as you can imagine, I was eager to see the results of my first adventures in olive curing.\u00a0 Other methods of curing olives at home include treating the fruit with lye, brining them whole and curing them in salt.\u00a0 I imagine, next season, we’ll try a different method of curing olives.\u00a0 Water curing is simple and remarkably easy; just clean the olives, discarding any marred fruit, and pound them with a mallet or rolling pin until the fruit is slightly bruised.\u00a0 Over a period of days or even weeks, depending on how much bitterness you prefer, soak them in clean water, changing it frequently.\u00a0 You’ll notice that the olives will release some of their oils and that oil will rise to the top of the water every day.\u00a0 Follow this by a heavily spiced brine, and you have home-cured olives.<\/p>\n

We’re looking forward to serving our olives at the Thanksgiving table and throughout the year as appetizers or in lovely, rustic tapenades.\u00a0 Some we seasoned with provincial herbs, others with Greek oregano and garlic, but these olives we seasoned with a savory array of North African spices.\u00a0 I can’t wait to pair them with a Moroccan-spiced Roast Chicken<\/a> or on fresh bread smeared with authentic labneh<\/a> and a slice of preserved lemon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cracked Olives: Moroccan Style<\/h2>\n

Fresh olives are sold in bulk at very affordable prices.\u00a0 While this recipe only makes use of a \u00bd gallon of olives, take advantage of larger quantities and spice them differently in order to vary the flavors in your kitchen. Incidentally, the water-curing method for preparing olives results in more oleuropein – an antioxidant thought to boost the immune system –\u00a0 in the end product which is, in part, why we chose this method.<\/p>\n

Ingredients for Home-cured, Cracked Olives<\/h3>\n