Cured Olives (Olives Piquées)
A recipe to prepare your own cured olives as instructed by our friends, the Grimal family in Valréas in the Northern Provence. They used to own quite a few Tanche olive trees and told us that this procedure has been practiced for many generations. This recipe only works with freshly harvested and fully matured olives.
Ingredients
- 6 lbs (2 3/4 kg) freshly harvested unblemished black olives
- 3-5 Tbsp fine sea salt (don’t use coarse salt)
- 1 tsp summer savory
- 1 tsp tarragon
- 1 tsp thyme
- 2-3 bay leaves
- 4 cups (1 L) olive oil
Preparation
Pricking
To “pique” means to prick with a needle and this is what we do first. Each olive needs to be pricked several times with a needle or toothpick so that the bitter juices can be extracted by the salt later on. Here is a shortcut I learned from Élodie’s husband who is in charge of the “pique” process: Take a champagne cork and insert a couple of toothpicks at the top part and you get a veritable porcupine. Suddenly the pique process is fun! Just pique away for 20 minutes and you are done with the 6 lbs (3 kg) of the freshly harvested black olives we want to prepare here.
Dry Curing
Place the pricked olives in a ceramic or plastic container, mixing them well with initially 2 tablespoons of salt. Place the open container in a dark, cool and airy place. Make sure that during the 10-15 day process you stir the olives well once a day. On the 2nd day add another 1 tablespoon of salt. On the 4th day taste for salt and add more if necessary. At the end of 15 days, the olives should have lost their bitterness and have a slightly salty taste. Discard any purplish liquid that leached out of the olives. Don’t rinse them under cold water.
Marinating
Place the olives in the marinade made of olive oil seasoned with summer savory (sariette), tarragon, thyme, bay leaves. Let them soak for 3 – 4 days in a cool place or the fridge. You can prepare the marinade using a different combination of spices. Substitute one or more of the above spices with garlic, red pepper flakes, rosemary, coriander or fennel seeds. You can also make it stronger by adding a larger quantity of spices. I like the quantity I listed above – you can still taste the olive proper.
Use-By
Olives Piquées are relatively easy and quick to make. But they need to be kept in a dark, cool place and consumed within 2 – 3 months. It’s not that the olives deteriorate, it’s the olive oil that might get rancid. I put them in the fridge, where they last for 12 months until the next olive harvest.
Notes
Tanche olives grow only around Nyons in the Drôme Provençale. They are the first olives in France awarded an Appellation d’Origine. They are not eaten green, they need to be plumb and black. Don’t taste one straight off the tree, it’s very bitter. Press gently between thumb and forefinger instead — if it gives, it’s ripe, whatever the color. Tanche olives are harvested after the first frost, normally during December and January. More than likely the harsh Mistral is blowing.
