Olive Verde Schiacciate (Cracked Green Olives) is a common antipasto throughout Calabria.

This dish is served at everyone’s home and at most restaurants before the main meal. Olives grow wild everywhere in Calabria from coast to coast. So much so that Calabria is the second largest grower of olives and producer of olive oil (Puglia being the first).

I highly recommend you trying this recipe out on your own or find the nearest Italian import shop and buy some cracked olives to enjoy with some wine and cheese or to serve for your antipasto for your next Italian dinner at home.

INGREDIENTS

3 lb fresh (uncured) green olives, such as Manzanilla
sea salt
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tsp dried wild fennel or wild fennel seeds (see source)
6 small fresh red hot cherry peppers
6 garlic cloves, sliced

PREPARATION

With a rubber mallet, crack each olive just enough to remove the pit; try to keep the olives as intact as possible. Remove the pits and place the olives in a bowl, completely submerged in water. Do this as soon as they are cracked or they will turn dark in color.

Store all the submerged olives at room temperature in a dark spot, change the water every day (every 12 hours) for up to 10 days, or until the olives are no longer bitter to the taste.

On the final day, fill a clean bowl with fresh water (more or less the same volume as the olives are in) and add salt in the ratio of 3/4 cup salt to 1 gallon of water, stirring until the salt dissolves. Drain the olives and submerge them (again) in the freshly mixed salt water and let stand for another 24 hours in order to salt them properly.

Drain the olives once again and place them in a colander. Top with weight (use a bucket or a pot filled with water) and let stand for another 10 hours to extract as much water from the cracked olives as possible.

At this point you can dress them. If you don’t want to use up all the olives, you can freeze them in a plastic storage bag (such as a Ziploc freezer bag) for future use. Always thaw the frozen olives before dressing them.

To dress the olives, place them in a small bowl and toss with good quality extra virgin olive oil, wild fennel, hot peppers and garlic. For best flavor, let the dressed olives stand for a few hours before serving.