So, here we are, seeing the sun rise steadily earlier every day, and seeing the produce turn from root vegetables to actual fruit (albeit miniature!). Foodwise, we’ve finally figured out some semblance of a balance with our box scheme, so that we’re not absolutely suffering suffocating beneath the onslaught of swedes (rutabagas), parsnips, and turnips. It’s been difficult for us to make this change, as we’d thought that we could go with ‘all UK vegetables’ and be local as well as organic … but we soon found that we were just wasting produce, as it slowly mouldered (or consumed immense amounts of refrigerator space).
The most interesting bit of cooking lately has been that we’ve made mustard! It’s surprisingly easy, and pretty much just involves … well, chucking equal amounts of brown & yellow mustard seeds into the mix & doing the following:
- Some yellow mustard seeds
- Some brown mustard seeds
- Some onion powder
- Some garlic powder
- Some molasses
- Some chili pepper flakes
- Some vinegar
- Some water
- Place about 1/4 of each type of mustard seed into water & let sit until they’re … well, kinda chewy (about 1/2 an hour is good).
- Meanwhile, grind the rest of everything until it’s thoroughly powdered.
- Add enough vinegar to the powdered stuff to get it hydrated to a thick paste.
- Drain and grind the hydrated ones briefly (until most seeds have been broken, but not to a paste or anything). You can use a mortar & pestle if you’d like, but we used our spice grinder (because it’s cool & comes apart to be cleaned).
- Mix everything together & chuck in the fridge for a couple of days.
Yes, everything in that recipe says ‘some’. That’s just the way it was done, and the way things are around here. Play it by ear – it’s the only way to actually enjoy the process! We’re eating it mixed up into ‘chicken’ salad (meat substitute) & on all manner of other things – and I must say that it’s a heck of a lot better than anything else!
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YUM! Just what is needed for welcoming in Spring. Just wait until you can start barbecuing!
Now this sounds like something I would make, if I could only get my hands on the brown mustard seeds. I will have to look the next time I’m in the city.
Cool, thanks for sharing 🙂
I am a big fan of your recipe style – some! I hate having to measure and time things but I have to because of this darn book!
Long before the book deal, it was one of the main reasons I did not post recipes on my blog 🙂
Nice yin/yang of mustard seeds you have. I’ve had 3 straight weeks of celeriac, celery, and celery in the veg box and had to but a sad face next to it in my preference list for now since we JUST can’t take any more.
ok, why the molasses? isn’t it sort of heavy handed for a binder?
The molasses is only because I didn’t have any honey! But it does add a nice, rich undertone, so we think we’d do it again, really. 🙂
And, Oh, yes, we’re familiar with the struggles of a veggie box here in the UK – they do tend to be … rather unvaried, at times. Sigh.
Good thinking, making your own mustard! t does sound easy peasy!