A must-have tool in the kitchen is an olive pitter. It is also known as a stoner. It is designed to remove the pits or stones from small round fruits, such as olives or cherries. It is usually made of stainless steel that is formed with a circular shaft that pierces the fruit to push out the pit. There are a variety of different designs, but the typical hand plier designed pitter will have two handles, a blunt shaft and a small holding tray with a open hole in the center. The handles are squeezed together which forces the shaft down into the fruit positioned in the holding tray, and ejects the pit through the open hole in the tray. The fruit remains intact and pitless.
I quite like Cuisipro’s olive pitter. It has a one-of-a-kind scoop which makes scooping up olives or cherries and pitting them at the same time, an easy one-hand operation. A splash guard protects work area from juice, while the silicone cup has flexible fins for holding both cherries and olives firmly in their grasp. Available from www.yuppiechef.com.
To pit olives:
- Place the olive securely inside the small bowl at the end of the olive pitter.
- Squeeze on the handles at the other end. This punches a small hole at the end of the olive.
- Continue to squeeze the handles until the pit is forced out of the punched hole and drops to the bottom of the bowl.
- Release the handle to drop the loose fruit into a separate bowl and discard the pit that is left behind.
Be sure to try one of the many recipes in June/July 2016 Recipes that has olives as an ingredient. Alternatively, click on the word “olive” in the recipe directory on the right hand side of the web page.
