Uses: Will make a half liter jar of marinated olives.

Assembling the recipe:

Preheat the oven to 100 C or and place the jars into it to sterilize for at least 20 minutes. Remove them and let them cool a little so you can handle them.

Open the olives and with the side of a heavy knife crush them just enough to open them a bit so that the marinade will penetrate their skins.

In the bottom of the jar place a big pinch of the coriander seeds, fennel seeds, sea salt and a few of the peppercorns, toss in one of the cloves of broken garlic and a piece or two of the cut up lemon and one spoonful of vinegar.

Put in a small handful of the olives and keep repeating the process until the jar is half full then add the second spoonful of vinegar and continue. Not to forget the thyme or rosemary sprigs and the bay leaves.

When the jar is full finish of by pouring enough olive oil over the contents to completely cover the olives and the jars contents and turn the jar upside down a couple of time to help distribute the spices in the jar. It is important that nothing sticks up over the top of the oil.

Place in a cool dark place or into the fridge for one week before using.

Notes:

There are several well known greek brands of olives on the market here. Most of the time it seems they are a bit expensive. I have found a brand in discount markets that cater to Mediterranean customers. They are black with their seeds and vacuum packed without any liquid. To be honest they don't look all that great but once opened and crushed they look fine and I prefer these for flavor to the ones from Greece packed in brine. They can also be found at Willy's at very affordable prices.

About crushing the olives, you only want to crack open the skin a little, not pulverize them.

Use either Rosemary or Thyme in the jars but not both at the same time.

The brando of olives is Sevan and they come in small or very large packages plastic packages. Not only do I use these for gifts but I have in my fridge a bottle of these almost all the time. Olives are great on their own, I also use them in tomato sauces for pasta or with one or two fish dishes.

Using fresh sprigs of herbs I think is important if you are giving them as gifts because of the way they look but I don't do that when I make them for myself, I usually just reach into the cabinet for dried herbs.