Must share my favourite way of preparing raw olives, taught to me by an Italian family living on the Murray River in Victoria many years ago.
Take a couple of kilos of green olives (raw ones, not the pickled ones) and stone them by hitting with a hammer and removing the stone. Put all the flesh in a big bucket and fill with water. Leave to soak in the water, changing the water every day, until the pale green flesh turns dark green. Be patient, this takes some time. My Italian friends used to leave it above a grate under a tap, out in the hot sun, and let the tap gently drizzle water in it, overflowing into the grate (with some fine wire on top to stop the olive flesh spilling out) but in these days of water restrictions, that's no longer a good idea. When ALL the olive flesh has turned dark, dark green, drain well, and bottle the olive flesh in olive oil, adding some peeled garlic cloves and/or bits of raw red chili. If you can, store it away long enough for the garlic/chili to infuse. Absolutely sumptuous with Italian style breads, especially on a sunny day with a glass of vino. And Jane, olive oil shouldn't spit unless the food you are adding is too wet. The butter is for extra flavour. If you want to fry in butter, then add olive oil and the butter won't burn. And did you know a circle of the paper you use to line cake tins with in your frypan, under the oil/fat etc. will stop food from sticking? No more lost bits of schnitzel coating. Australia is now producing more and more olive oil every year, great stuff. There's an "early harvest" one available in the supermarket which has far more flavour than it's same-label "ordinary" counterpart. I have a couple of olive trees in my yard, but I've never been able to harvest anything yet - the magpies eat them! Don't know how they do it! Raw olives are completely inedible! Noelene in Cooma [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
