Elies tsakistes or ελιες πρασινες τσακιστε translate to Greek cracked green olives are traditional Greek Cypriot olives. The olives are perfectly balanced with heat from garlic and cooling sourness of crushed coriander seeds. Lemon adds a sour freshness that lifts everything up and if you get the salt right you’ll be licking your fingers after each olive you eat.
WHAT ARE ELIES TSAKISTES GREEK CRACKED GREEN OLIVES
Elies tsakistes are fresh green olives that are picked off of olive trees in late October. Each olive is cracked with a stone but you need to be careful not to crack the stone inside. The olives are then soaked in a big jar of water that is changed everyday for a week to get rid of the olives bitterness. Finally the olives are preserved in a salt water brine for at least 3 weeks and then seasoned with lemon, garlic and coriander seeds.
HOW TO MAKE ELIES TSAKISTES RECIPE
To make elies tsakiestes Greek cracked green olives is so easy. The complexity in flavour give the impression that they are hard to accomplish but they are as simple as can be. Here take a look:
- Pour olive oil to your olives and stir
- Squeeze lemon juice and add lemon rinds and stir
- Add chopped garlic and stir
- Crush coriander seeds, add to the olives and stir
- Season with salt and stir
Elies tsakistes Greek cracked green olives video
Can you see just how easy elies tsakistes are to make? But what do you do if you can’t get your hands on fresh green olives? Don’t worry I’ve got you sorted.
GREEK CRACKED GREEN OLIVES SUBSTITUTE
If you don’t have fresh green olives you can substitute them with any kind of Green olive you get in a jar. Just make sure the stones are still in the olives. Don’t get pitted olives because their texture is too rubbery. Also try and get the smallest green olives you can, the less flesh the better. If you use olives with a lot of meat on them the flavours wont be able to penetrate in as deep so the inner part of your olives wont have as much flavour.
WHAT TO SERVE WITH ELIES TSAKISTES
Greek cracked green olives are great eaten on their own, with some homemade crusty bread, tomatoes and cucumbers, along side a Greek salad, as a side to grilled meat and fish, souvlaki, kleftiko, moussaka, fasolia, Greek lemon and honey leg of lamb.
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Ingredients
INGREDIENTS
- 500 g Green olives
- 2-3 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
- 1 Lemon (juice and rind)
- 2 cloves Garlic (thinly sliced)
- 2-3 tsp Coriander seeds (crushed)
- Salt
EQUIPMENT
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Spoon
- 1 Pestle and mortar
- 1 Knife
Instructions
INSTRUCTIONS
- To 500g of green olives add 2-3 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil and give it a good stir
- Squeeze the juice of 1/2 a lemon and add half the rinds. Save the other half of the lemon to taste test later and see if you need to add more
- Add 2 cloves of thinly sliced garlic and stir well
- Add 2-3 tbsp of crushed coriander seeds and stir them in
- Add in salt and stir everything together
- Now have a taste. I like mt elies tsakistes lemony so I add the rest of my lemon juice but I dont add the rinds because too many will make the olives taste bitter. |What you have to do is taste as you go and how you like it
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