Curing olives

A month or so ago a friend was telling me about her daughter olive trees and that they are laden with little black olives, but when they tried them they were disgusting. I told her that the had to be brined or cured before you could eat them, but didn't really know much more than that. While researching recipes for my CDWM a few weeks ago, I came across a recipe for brined olives and I mentioned it to her.

Today she presented me with a bag of tiny black olives, so of course I had to give it a go. It's mainly about soaking them in water for a while, then a brine solution for a while. However the recipes all said you needed to slit the olives to allow the brine and water to penetrate them and remove the oleuropein which is the bitter tasting compound in fresh olives.

What I didn't realise is that the process would stain my hands a lovely blacky purple colour, not an attractive look!😒