If you want to process olives, you must first remove the pits from them. With a few tricks this is very easy.
Olives are used to round off Mediterranean dishes and are also popular as a snack between meals. The hard pits inside the stone fruit promise little enthusiasm. Pitting olives is generally complex and laborious, because the pits are relatively firmly attached to the pulp. If you want to cut out the core, you will find it difficult and give away a lot of pulp. In the following, we will tell you how to easily pit olives and keep them intact.
Core olives - pressing instead of cutting
To separate olives from their pits, a longer kitchen knife is needed. The trick is: If the cores are to be released cleanly, they are not cut as usual, but pressed.
The flat side of the knife is placed on the olive. Light pressure is now applied. As the knife is now moved towards the body, the olive will move under the knife and the pit will be pushed out.
Tip: If the stone does not come out of the fruit completely, you can help with it with your fingers.
With this method it is important not to apply too much pressure. If you are too rough, you will not only crush the olive itself, but even the pit.
Core several olives quickly
If you want to pit a large number of olives, the technique just described is time-consuming and time-consuming.
If you want to pit a lot of fruit, use a rolling pin. The technique is similar to the knife method just mentioned.
Place the olives on a cutting board or other flat surface. The rolling pin is moved slowly and with little pressure over the olives. The seeds usually slide out of the fruit on their own. Here, too, you can help with your fingers if a core has not completely come loose.
When using the rolling pin, it is particularly important to proceed with the necessary sensitivity. If the olives are crushed, they are usually no longer suitable for further processing, such as pickling.
Core the olives with the olive pitter
An olive pitter is a tool that reminds some housewives of pitting cherries. The technique is similar. The olive is placed in the open tongs. Squeezing the device pushes out the core.
It remains to be considered whether the purchase is worthwhile. Ultimately, only one olive can be pitted at a time. If larger quantities of olives are to be processed, handling the olive stoner is also a time-consuming affair.
Core the olives by machine
This method is only mentioned for the sake of completeness. These devices are not relevant for home use and occasional olive consumption. In the food industry or in Italian restaurants there are now and then machines for pitting olives.
These bulky devices require a power connection and greatly facilitate the pitting of large quantities of olives.
Tip: With some of these special machines, over 2,000 olives per minute can be stoned.
What should be considered when pitting olives?
Olives can be pitted quickly and easily with the methods mentioned. To ensure that the process runs smoothly and the result is convincing, a few things must be observed:
- Place the olives on a flat, non-slip surface
- use longer kitchen knife
- do not put too much pressure on the olives
- Keep sharp knife tips away from body when coring
Using too much pressure to pit olives will damage the pit itself. This makes it even harder to separate it from the fruit and leaves hard and inedible splinters in the fruit.