preserving foods in oil

There's a book listed on the permies book grid entitled Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning. I got the book because I'm very interested in off-grid techniques for preserving food, and it contains old fashioned food storage and preservation methods. One of the chapters is about preserving in oil. Is anyone familiar with this method? Apparently, it's has been used for a long time in Mediterranean countries.

The book has several recipes for preserving cheese in olive oil, so since I have hot summers that aren't suitable for making aged hard cheeses, I wanted to try some of these ideas. Here's the first experiment I tried.

goat milk feta and fresh herbs in olive oil

The variation I use is cheese and fresh picked herbs layered in extra virgin olive oil in a wide-mouth jar or crock. The other variations call for whole garlic cloves or peppercorns and red peppers. The key with this method is to keep everything covered in oil at all times.

I store the covered crocks in my pantry and have found that the cheese keeps really, really well. The bonus is that the oil is flavored with cheese and herbs and is fantastic for salads, sauteing, replacing butter on garlic bread, as  the oil in my pizza dough, or as a dipping oil for hot crusty French bread. I now make a year's supply every cheese making season.

My latest experiment is cherry tomatoes preserved in olive oil. I've had soooo many cherry tomatoes, that I've been looking for ways to use and preserve them.

ingredients

The recipe calls for cherry tomatoes, small onions or shallots, and fresh herbs. These are layered in scalded pint jars leaving 1.5 inches headspace. Course salt is sprinkled over the tomatoes, and a tablespoon or two of apple cider vinegar or lemon juice is added. Then the jar is filled with extra virgin olive oil and stored in a cool place (50-59°F / 10-15°C).

cherry tomatoes preserved in EVOO.

It's ready to use in about two or three months. I haven't tried it yet because I just made it last week, but I'm thinking it will be the closest thing to homegrown fresh tomatoes come winter!

The biggest downside seems to be the cost of the olive oil, but on the other hand, I use olive oil anyway, so there's no waste and the flavored oil seems like a bonus.

Does anyone else preserve food in oil? Any ideas or recipes to share?

Update on the oil-preserved cherry tomatoes. I had forgotten about them but got them out the other day for our first salad of the year. They were great! Next summer, I will definitely preserve more than just two pints.

Interesting topic.

Not me, but my grandmother. She made pickled peppers and instead of storing them long term in the pickling juice, she drained them, then stored them in oil. As a kid, t thought they were the best thing going as a sandwich topper….no mayonnaise required.

The only thing I now store in oil is the pig slop. Yes. Gross, I know. But at times I get too much food waste for the pigs to eat in a timely fashion. So rather than mix it into a compost pile, it goes into 5 gallon buckets (with lids). I then fill the buckets with the waste food grade oil I also pick up, oil discarded from food fryers. This keeps the pig food edible for a couple of weeks, until it is needed. My farm works on a zero waste basis, so I was pleased to come up with this idea.

I do not like the way herbs raste when you dry them. They lose most of their aroma. So i put my herbs into olive oil. They give their taste to the oil. I usually make a couple of mixes and some single herb oils.

Leigh: I'm interested in the cherry tomatoes in oil. Have you tried it again?
I may be doing a batch today to try them. Haven't got much fresh herbs to work with, but have a good tomato collection.

Pearl Sutton wrote:Leigh: I'm interested in the cherry tomatoes in oil. Have you tried it again?

I'm definitely going to try it again! We ate all I made last year, so this year I'm going to make more. My cherry tomatoes are just now coming on like crazy, so it's time to get started on another batch.

Oil preserved tomatoes sound really yummy!

Do take care to acidify any vegetables/ herbs stored in oil to avoid botulism, though!

Here is University of Idaho publication on safe method.

I have to say that the vinegar added to the tomato/herb/olive oil mixture in the recipe gave them a wonderful salad dressing flavor.

Oil preservation is something I have to now try out. Are their any pitfalls or rules of thumbs:
Like say keep out of sunlight so that the oil doesn't go rancid:
don't put raw meat in it only cooked meat
or maybe there is some rule that says I have to wait a min of 2 months for the flavors to harmonize?

I have been preserving in oil for many years, I guess it's my Mediterranean heritage!

I love chillies, so of course I preserve them in oil.  I still have some from last year's batch and they are  still delicious.  Salt them overnight, wash and dry them before putting them in olive oil.  Feta with olives and herbs is also one of my favourite, but I have found that sun dried tomatoes, roasted peppers and aubergines will work really well as long as there is no air bubbles and the ingredients are covered at all time with at least 1cm of oil.

I have on occasion purchase some black olives that were not all that fantastic so I often wash them, dry them and put them in olive oil with garlic, chilli, cumin, parley and coriander, or some other variation of herbs to give them a new lease of life.  To my taste, green olives are better with basil, but basil leaves need to be blanched briefly or they will go mouldy in the oil.

Of course, I would not be without grated garlic in olive oil.  I always have a big jar handy and I actually love it spread on hot toast instead of butter for a savoury snack.  And so easy to put into soups or stews.

And I guess making loads of pesto is one way of preserving all that lovely basil, again in loads of olive oil.  Pine nuts are very expensive here in France so I make it with sunflower seeds or walnuts and as for the Parmesan, well I'm just so damn lucky!!  My friend is Italian and her mother sends her a parcel of food from Italy every month, so I make sure she has a big lump of Parmesan in it for me!

I found a few recipes for roasting the cherry tomatoes before packing them with garlic and herbs and oil. Looked good. I have two jars sitting for a couple of weeks. LOTS of garlic in them. :D

I don't really like adding acids to preserved veggies or herbs, but to avoid botulism you really should do so.

Therefore I avoid adding vinegar or similar by making a "confit" which I then sterilise in the oven. Similar to Pearl's recipe but with an additional heating cycle.
I use Roma style tomatoes, cut them in half and add herbs, garlic, salt, pepper, a bit of honey and generous amounts of olive oil in a sheet pan. When they look nicely roasted, I transfer them to Weck jars with oil and all and sterilize like half an hour in the jars.
Delicious for quick tomato tarts or to accompany cheeses.

In the fermentation world, I've read several accounts of people "sealing" an anaerobic ferment with an oil cap and causing botulism or some other pathogenic illness. I'm also very sensitive to the taste of rancid oil. So this is a thing I'm really interested in but have steered clear of out of fear of doing it wrong. (Though I do have a big jar of garlic confit in the fridge.) One day I'll need to read up on this and dive in. I'm glad you folks are doing it with good results.

Botulism spores are hard to kill, but botulism toxin is neutralized 185 F/85 C.
If your fermenting/ preserving and you are trying to exclude air, an oil cap could be very useful.
I wonder if seabuckthorn could be a good source of acid and oil for food preservation.