Curing olives

[cookM]

Does anyone have any tips or recipes to cure olives? I got 4# of organic just-picked olives today at the farmers' market. The farmer told me that they will cure much faster if you slit them a bit (he says they crush or slit them a little in Italy), and he says it good to add some lemon in with the cure or brine. So does anyone have any brines or cures? I don't want to go the way with lye; I want to use salt as the main ingredient. Thanks.

[mudbug]

It's easy to search for websites about curing olives. Go to any major search engine like www.google.com, www.metacrawler.com., www.northernlight.com and type in "curing olives"
http://homecooking.about.com/food/ho.../blbrining.htm
http://newattitudes.lifetimetv.com/r...ng_olives.html
http://www.bayarea.net/~emerald/curing.html
http://www.taunton.com/fc/features/i...s/olives/2.htm
http://www.adelaide.net.au/~craigh/olive_curing.html
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mjw/recipes/v...ng-olives.html
http://www.vegweb.com/glossary/docs/blackolives.shtml

[cookM]

Thank you, cchiu. You are always a wealth of info.

cookM

[youla]

this is a lebanese recipe....get your olives and with a weight crush each one a little...put them into a brine of salt and water and get a fresh egg from room temperature and put the whole egg in the brine keep adding salt until the egg floats to the top...then you know you have enough salt in the mix....repeat the change of brine daily for 4 days then every second day for 6 days thhen add lemon quarters which have been blanched and chili or any other flavour you want...garlic,pepper, oregano etc...leave the olives in the new brine [or now they can go into good olive oil which will take longer to cure ] for about 3 months...try them at 10 weeks the lemon and garlic and oregano ones are my favourite...make sure you get a good tasting lemon to use.

[cookM]

Youla, your recipe is exactly what I was looking for, especially with the addition of the lemon. I do have some tasty lemons--Meyers. Add it's great to know you can personally recommend flavors.

I like it!!!! Thanks.