Mustard recipe

by Jon Sullivan - 2024-01-22 - Food

<<<<< previous blog         next blog >>>>>        album containing this post's photo

---

PNW is a block of ice. Leaving the apartment might mean death. So, as one does, I made mustard.

Mustard is one of those ingredients no one ever makes. The store has cheap mustard in endless varieties. So what would even be the point of making your own? For the same reason you'd make stock from scratch even though it's a pain in the ass, and more expensive than buying some concentrate in the store - homemade stock/broth is wildly better than concentrate. It's not even close. With mustard it's the same but much easier. Other than soaking the seeds, making mustard takes about 5 minutes. These days I always make my own.

This version of the recipe is for a Dijon style with wine. You make a different beer style mustard by switching to malt vinegar and a dark Belgian beer instead of wine. You can also do weird things like add cranberries for a thanksgiving mustard. Or dried apricots and honey for a breakfast mustard. Use rice wine vinegar and add wasabi and it's a Chinese style.

The "heat" of the finished mustard can be increased or decreased by how much brown mustard seed you use. The recipe below is hot but not too hot. Going to 50/50 yellow/brown will make it very hot, but not crazy. If you like no heat bland mustard you need to stop living your life wrong.

1/3 cup whole yellow mustard seeds
2 tbsp whole brown mustard seed
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup white wine
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp curry powder
1 tsp turmeric powder
honey to taste
mustard powder (optional, for thickening at the end)

- Grind the mustard seeds in a spice grinder or blender. How powdery you make it will determine what it looks like when finished. I like to have some seed chunks remaining for a "stone ground" look and texture.
- In a small nonreactive bowl stir together the powdered mustard seed, vinegar, wine, salt and spices.
- Cover and let sit on the counter for 48 hours, stir a couple times a day.
- Put the entire slurry in a blender, blend, and let sit for a few minutes.
- Add wine or ground yellow mustard to get proper consistency and blend again.
- Taste and add honey or spices to get the flavor you want.

The flavor will develop more and the heat will decrease as it sits in the fridge.

<<<<< previous blog         next blog >>>>>

---