Q: My husband makes his own (delicious!) pasta sauce which calls for chopped Kalamata olives. He prefers those soaked in olive oil over red wine vinegar for the best flavor.
The trouble is we cannot find pitted Kalamatas in olive oil, only the vinegar — even at our grocer's olive bar. I am the default olive pitter and I'm tired of smelling like olives for hours after we're done cooking. Is there a reason why pitted olives can't be stored in oil?
Sent by Liz
Editor: This is an interesting question, Liz! It is true: We don't usually see pitted olives in oil.
Readers, any ideas or tips? We are a little stumped on this one.
Related: Recipe: Kalamata Olive Tapenade with Shallots
(Image: Liz via email)
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http://www.olivepit.com/
You may want to check out OLIVE in long beach too if you live in California. They are a great source.
Why not soak the wine type (rinse first) in olive oil overnight? Also, Whole Foods has a good assortment of olives.
Google is your friend:
http://www.christosmarket.com/Kalamata-Olives-in-Olive-Oil-by-Star-Brand-p/olv01.htm
Trader Joe's has them (I know because I once bought them by mistake).
However, I'm not sure if those are pitted or not.
TJs has them and they are pitted. I have them in my fridge right now with the tell-tale congealed fat on top.
i've also found them at trader joe's
TJ's aren't really in all oil. I buy them all the time and they are kind of an oil/brine hybrid mixture. It's OK, but actually I've found that I prefer other olives - theirs are too sharp for me.
Fresh Direct, if you're in New York, has pitted olives in oil.
We make our own... I know it is a bit insane but having traveled in Europe where you can buy a variety of olives by the bucket, boring supermarket olives in a plastic bag with brine just don't do it for us. We have a couple of pitting tools and plonk our kids along the counter and we all pit a heap of olives... then we pop them in jars with olive oil and lemon slices and garlic cloves, rosemary and any other yumminess we can think of!!! All in one day and then we enjoy them for ages and they make fabulous gifts.
@comicgeek: http://www.olivepit.com doesn't have what she's looking for.
@txdave13: those don't appear to be pitted.
@se7en: isn't the whole point of the OP's post to avoid having to go through all that work or smell?
The Trader Joe's version isn't all oil.
You can't find them because the best quality olives are not pitted and the best quality olives are packed in oil.
Kalamata aren't my favorite but I think there is almost zero difference between the olive oil and brine version. But I'm not Greek...
Our Trader Joes has two kinds of pitted kalamatas in a jar. The ones that are in a taller/narrower jar are packed in brine. The ones in the very slightly shorter/wider jar are in 100% oil.
I don't know why, but if it's the smell rather than the work that bothers you, you could wear latex gloves.
*I mean, I know why you could wear gloves. I don't know why pitted olives don't come in oil.
Whole Foods Antipasto bar.
OP here, thanks for the comments everyone! Especially JudiAU for explaining it's a quality thing. It makes sense now.
We don't live very close to a TJ's but we do make it to one about once a month. I'll have to look next time we're there.
In the past week we've noticed it's become increasingly difficult to find olives in olive oil at all, and I worry our grocer is phasing them out. We also procured a cherry pitter from Sur La Table which I'm told also works on olives. We shall see!