Pickle olive

olive Buja

While harvesting olives in Croatia, I gathered a bag of big, no blemish olives to try pickling them. I am not really into eating pickle olives, but I found that a method to remove the natural bitterness is by fermentation. This is a technique I am interested in, and also feel good to eat properly fermented olives.  

Pickle olive

1. Place olives in a container nearly to the top, fill with a 5% salt water solution, and 1 cup of vinegar, submerge the olives with a small plate or some bay leaves. Both olives and bay leaves (if not washed) have lactic bacteria to start fermentation.

Pickle olive

2. Cover the open top loosely with cling film, keep at room temperature to kick start fermentation, wrap the bottle with paper bag to remove light. Bubbles will start to form the next day, after 3 days, keep in a cool dark place.

3. Using fermentation to remove bitter ingredient in olive is a very slow process, at least 6 months. Change the brine solution if too cloudy.