Citrus marinated olives #recipe #homemadegift #ediblegift #30daychallenge #theingredientdiaries

Recipe 5 of 30 – citrus and spice marinated olives
Olives are mine (and my 18 month old son’s facecover emoji how pretentious) favourite food so this year i’m marinating my own! Fresh herbs, citrus peel and plump juicy nocellara olives. The oil is amazing for dipping or drizzling over cheese, and they make beautiful little gifts if you’re invited over to a friend’s for dinner and need a quick, fun gift.
Ingredients
300g Nocellara olives
1 unwaxed orange
1 unwaxed lemon
Small handful Sage
1 small sprig fresh rosemary
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
½ tsp aleppo pepper (or chilli flakes)
½ tsp black peppercorns
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 bay leaf
100ml extra virgin olive oil

Method:
Peel strips from the orange and lemon and finely dice. Finely chop the herbs and crush the coriander seeds and black pepper using a pestle and mortar, then add the aleppo pepper. Mix together, along with the olive oil, lemon juice and sliced garlic. Stir in the olives.

Pop a bayleaf into a jar and add the olives and marinade (top up with more oil if needed). Cover and leave to marinate for at least 2 hours (or overnight if you can) to let the flavours mingle. Give them a stir every so often so the herbs and spices stay evenly distributed.

Keep the olives in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. Bring to room temperature before serving — the oil will solidify slightly when chilled.

Welcome to day five of the ingredient diaries. 30 days of sharing a new recipe each day. Every day focusing on a different ingredient. And today’s ingredient is the mighty olive. We are making marinated olives. And you might be thinking, I can buy olives marinated. Why would I do it myself? But let me tell you, anything that you do from scratch with fresh herbs, fresh citrus, and fresh spices tastes 100 times better. And that is true of these olives. So I’m taking no mozzarella olives, which are so buttery and creamy. You want to get plain olives, um, which are a little bit cheaper than marinated as well. Then you want to take fresh herbs. I’m using rosemary and sage. Chop them as finely as you can with the peel of a lemon and an orange and a garlic. Mix that all together and then top up with your favorite extra virgin olive oil. The quality really makes a difference here because you can taste it on every single olive. Stick that into a jar with some lemon juice. Then these make the perfect little gift or you could eat them all by yourself.