Blackrock Rd Salted Olives

This year our fabulous manzanilla olives were dark red by late May. We'd picked for oil in early May, and I had left these to ripen especially for our salted olives. Richard, David and I picked the final 40kgs of juicy black and red olives. Richard and I sorted these - yes it took hours.

Above: The dried salted olives soaking in our new oil.

We stored them in layers of salt for several weeks, turning them every few days to let the bitter juices and salt run out. I have perfected this method over the past few years, copying an old Greek recipe I found and shaped by a more recent French method from Province.

This weekend, David and I have washed them, dried them, doused them in our oil and stored them in their jars. They are ready!

Getting ready to put the salted olives into their jars. the farm kitchen is in full production!

Each jar weights 203 gms and each jar holds 200 gms. We then seal this.

No surprises for Christmas this year! The olives look like raisins and taste like olives. The olives are great slightly warmed, and orange or lemon zest added, or just as they are. Feeling pretty chuffed with our Blackrock Rd 2013 pinot noir (5 cases), our olive oil, and now, salted olives. 

Catalan delights with chefs Ian and Rhett Hornblow

Moore Wilsons, Wellington's fabulous fresh deli and market, has a series of classes at present and I took  the chance to go to the one last Thursday.

Chef Ian Hornblow assisted by his son Rhett, prepared three tapas dishes for us; dates with roquefort and pine nuts, pork meats balls in red pepper sauce, and catalian creme. What a treat this session was.

Our coffee orders were taken as we arrived - a perfect treat on the chilly Thursday morning. Moore Wilson's has a great air of generosity and hospitality and this welcome was perfect. Ian began sharing some of his experiences of Catalan food, their traditions and their produce. I found his stories completely captivating. Mid winter is a time I dream of being in warmer climates and Spain sounds just fine! Ian pointed out New Zealand is one of the few countries that serves wine as an aperitif, and encourages serving small bites of food with wine. The Spanish tend to eat 3 - 4 small dishes in an evening rather than the larger main course and desert we tend to serve in New Zealand.

Rhett began making the initial tapas of fresh dates, stuffed with roquefort and pine nuts. This tiny appetiser was simply delicious.

As he was preparing the meatballs, Ian talked of dining at Ombre the inviting new and popular eatery on the corner of Cuba and Vivian streets and the Havannah Bar in Wigan Street opposite the new city lighthouse theatre. Both great places. But I digress.

Pork meat balls: Ian combined pork mince, minced bacon pieces, olive oil, panko breadcrumbs, passata, herbs and eggs. These were rolled in fine polenta. Ian recommended this as a gluten free way of crumbing fish and meat.

While Rhett was rolling the meatballs, Ian made the red pepper sauce. He blitzed scorched red peppers with his home made passata (soon to be on the shelves of Moore Wilson's). This was strained then served as a base to the meatballs. Tapas number two looked great and tasted delicious; crunchy on the outside, moist inside and the sauce was completely moorish.
 Left: Rhett rolling the meatballs.

It was great to see Rhett assisting his dad and the two working easily together in the kitchen.

Right: Ian adds olive oil to the meat mixture. 

Immediately after the class, I wandered into the fresh market areas and packed a basket of all the goodies from the recipe and made these at home. They were easy to make and simply delicious.

Next was the creme catalan. This is a custard made of egg yolks, sugar, cinnamon stick and a little cornflour. Ian added finely grated skin of a fresh limes for extra zing. Then 15 - 20 minutes of dedicated stirring with a whisk. His bain-marie was a glass bowl over a pot of boiling water, where the water doesn't touch the base of the bowl - so the whisked eggs don't over cook.

This was served in tiny bamboo tubs and eaten with a wooden stick and was smooth, silky and creamy with the zing of lime zest. Quite fantastic. Ian also showed us how to caramelise the top with sugar and blow torch for creme brûlée. This looked fantastic, and pretty easy too with the tiny blow torch, but too much sugar for me. A definate treat for some time in the future.

The class was informative, had an air of abundance and the recipes were easy to follow. I loved being able to wander the market after choosing some special treats. Almost as good as being in Spain.

The April Grape Harvest at Blackrock Rd

We were up at the crack of dawn for our first coffee and for me, a fresh juice - carrot, apple, pear and ginger with our super duper Breville juicer. This is me at the bench doing my best to look awake. We have a few things to do before the neighbours arrive. Richard is still sound asleep. WE plan to begin picking around 9.30am. David and I head out and there is a massive dew.





The grass is really wet and we have one of those much disliked jobs...David and I unclip and lift all the nets.

This means bending down, unclipped the bread clips from the nets, pocketing them, for 9 rows, 12 bays a row, 5 vines a bay. That is a lot of bending and a lot of unclipping and lifting. Fingers frozen, backs aching, and time to head inside for a coffee and some breakfast.  The good news is the grapes looks great.

 Everyone arrives around 9.30 and David leads a master class in picking the grapes. Only pick the ripe bunches, taste every now and again and if they are bitter, toss them out.

Left: Richard, Jane and Mena listening to Davo.

 Richard emerging from the cottage, ready for the day

 Left:
David letting us know what is what in picking the grapes.

We take a bucket each, choose our pruners, and pruning partner and off we go.

We pair up so we can talk as we go. Mena carefully selecting the grapes to cut.

Richard and Richards picking.

My bucket is nearly full.

 My very snazzy and very old outdoor work boots. I bought these in Rome around 1998, they have done a few miles. David refuses to walk with me when I wear these to the supermarket, but they are ideal for picking grapes.






We take each bucket filled with grapes over to the trailer with all the bins. David weighs each one, and carefully records the weight. We are heading for 200 - 300kg of grapes.

Richard  contemplating.

 By 11.30, seven of us have picked everything we are going to pick.  Time for another coffee. 
David and I take the grapes over to Martinborough to our new winemaker, James Walker. he is going to using a French method in making the wine and it could be ready by mid June! Watch this space!

Olive Picking May 2013

Neighbour Henry Sinclair took most of these photos.

Of course we had to begin with coffee and hot cinnamon scones which Jane bought over.

Jane's fantastic pinwheel scones for breakfast

The weekend of 4th May - time to pick our olives. Earlier than usual because of pending frosts - this meant the olives were greener than ideal. One third black, one third red, and one third green is preferred, however after losing all of our olives last year to frost, I didn't want to risk it. The weather was gorgeous for picking olives so Richard J, Richard M, Jane, David, Christina and I set to work.

We begin: the bins are clean and ready, the nets are laid out, and up the ladders we go. Even though it is late autumn, picking olives pretty hot work. We were lucky with the weather and we needed water frequently.

Richard was spotted being contemplative on various occasions.  Probably thinking strategy!

This is the first year with our own nets, having borrowed Paul's for the past few years. We bought these from a scaffolding company and they were fantastic.  We had cut them long enough to spread them out under 3 trees. This meant we didn't have to keep moving them.  I found it really satisfying as we gather the olives and put them into the bins. Each bin holds around 25 kg of olives so we know approximately how many kilos we have. Our olives are manzanilla, which is a table olive. This means we usually get a low percentage of oil - around 8% oil per kilo so 450 kilos of olives will produce 45 litres of oil. Other cultivars have 17 - 24% oil so our olives are not ideal for oil, however I prefer to have the oil than pickling the olives.

Christina came down from Auckland to help this year and it was great to be doing this together.

On day 3 we had picked all of our olives, and Paul from next door said we could pick some of his leccino olives. I thought these would improve the flavour of our oil so we headed next door on Sunday and we picked about 80Kg of olives.

Left: Christina taking the nets to the next trees we are to pick.

Lunch provides a welcome break from lugging nets, ladders and bins of olives. Sourdough bread, beetroot, walnut, orange and goats cheese salad, ham, avocado, and tomato and basil with of course heaps of olive oil from last year.

Richard and Christina folding the nets at the end of the day.

Great conversations are had in the trees: the impact of good breakfasts on children's abilities and motivation to learn, undesirable additives in NZ milk from imported feed for cows, the increased pollution in NZ rivers with intensive dairy farming, recent travels, the effects of super cities in increasing regional unemployment, recent apps we have discovered and books we have read.

Far right: Christina and Jane up the ladders







Right: me, spotted!


Bill down at the Olive Press had opened up for our olives. I love the moments when we pour all the bins into one of the wooden bins from the press, they are weighed and we find out how much we have actually picked, and then into the process they go. 45 minutes later our oil is swirling out, a rich dark lime green and our first taste of the season.                                                  

Bill and Richard discussing olive business down at the Olive Press.