Pickled olives and tomatoes

Ingredients:

For the Olives:

2 branches of rosemary
1 Bio-Orange
4 cloves of garlic
500g of black olives (drained; with or without stone) *
Sea salt
2½ tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 chilli pepper (dried)
125ml olive oil (depending on jar size)
1 tbsp liquid honey

*Advice: if the olives are fresh from the tree, then remove the stones and soak in salt water for at least 3 days! Then fill a pot with water and cover, adding 1kg of salt for each kilo of olives. Change the water and the salt every 8 hours! Place the pot with its lid, in the fridge.

For the Tomatoes:

250ml white wine
125ml white wine vinegar
500g dried tomatoes
Basil
Sage
Oregano or Rosemary
375ml olive oil
2 litres water
1 garlic clove

Preparation:

For the olives:

Rinse rosemary and shake dry. Remove the rosemary needle-leaves and chop finely. Wash orange with hot water, dry and peel closely (without the white pith, as this is bitter). Chop the orange peel finely. Squeeze the orange juice. Pull off garlic and cut into slices.

Put olives in a large screw-on lid jar. Add orange peel some salt, the chopped rosemary, vinegar, garlic and optionally the crumbled chilli pepper, and mix all together. Stir 100ml olive oil, honey and orange juice and pour over the olives. A further possibility is to add some extra oil so that the olives are just about covered. Let the olives soak for at least 3 days in the fridge. Shake the jars intermittently, so that the liquid is spread out equally.

For the tomatoes:

Boil 2 litres of water with white wine and white-wine vinegar. Add tomatoes and take pot off the hob. Let soak for 5 minutes (or a little longer). Let tomatoes drain in a sieve for 4–5 hours, then put in jars with the herbs (mixture as desired) and the finely chopped garlic, cover with olive oil and let marinate for at least 3 days. Will keep for at least 4 weeks in cool and dark conditions.

Remove the olives from the stock, the tomatoes from the oil, each in large bowls and serve white bread alongside.

Ingredients for 12 servings, preparation required (at least 3 days earlier!), ready in: 30 minutes