Mustard Fields #1

After the henbit is done blooming in last year's bean and corn fields, the wild mustard takes over.   It is spectacular.   Even my youngest paused to say wow when we drove by one last week. [Actually, she said more than that - it was not G-rated, but pretty hilarious.  Swearing is our second language and we speak it fluently.]

I painted this one, hated it and tried another.   When I was done with that one [tomorrow's post], I put them away.   When I came back, they had magically improved some.  That chartreuse is pretty intense, but it sure is fun.

Palette:  Raw umber, French ultra blue, new gamboge, Hansa yellow lt., sap green, and a bit of Mission bt sienna.

Honey Mustard

A couple of days ago I told you how I made mustard this year.    I took that mustard and decided it needed some honey.   Lots of honey.   

I made honey mustard.     It's .... beyond anything [Name that movie.]  Not too hot, not too sour, not too sweet.   Mmmm.

Here's the link to the post from a couple of days ago that explained how I made the mustard.  Go there if you need to see what I actually did. 

Honey Mustard
www.rurification.com

1/4 cup mustard seeds
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
6 Tablespoons honey.

You might need to soak the seeds in the vinegar for a day to soften them.  Blend well.  A stick blender works well to grind it - stop when it reaches the consistency you want.   Let sit for a day to meld the flavors.  

Homemade Mustard

Making mustard is fun. We make some every year.  And we learn something new every time we do.

It's easy to make and quite honestly the hardest part is finding the mustard powder and mustard seeds to make it with.   I get mine from Penzey's.     Here's a link to their mustard offerings.  While you're there, take a look around at the other fabu things they offer. 

So here's the thing about mustard.   It can get really hot.    I'm not all that big on 'really hot', so I like to dial it down a bit.   Which means you need to know about how mustard chemistry works.  These are the basics:

Mustard gets hotter, the more you expose it to the air.   This means that mustard powder is way hotter than mustard seeds.  

Mustard made with water is hotter than mustard made with vinegar [vinegar is acid].    It's a chemistry thing.  See the very top link for a post with other links to more specific information.

Once the mustard is made, it will tone down if you leave it out of the fridge in the cupboard to meld for a few weeks.  Or months.    We tried it, it works.   We left last year's mustards out for 6 months and it got mellower and mellower without a trace of mold or anything nasty.  

So, if I want milder mustard, I want to do it by grinding seeds in vinegar. 

If I want a hot mustard, then I use mustard powder in water. 

Since I really did want a mild mustard this year, I decided to combine my own white wine vinegar with only mustard seeds and no mustard powder.  I used equal parts mustard and vinegar and I tossed them in the food processor to process, whereupon I watched them go around and around and around without actually becoming anything remotely mustard like.

I fear I wasn't very pleasant about it.   Seriously.   Food processors have one job.   To process food.    Apparently our food processor wasn't aware that mustard seeds and vinegar are food.  Arg.

Since I was doing a small amount, I didn't want to put it in the blender because I would have lost too much to the sides of the canister, but I'm guessing the blender would have worked just fine. 

Nooo, I decided to put it in my mortar and pestle and grind them by hand.   How hard could it be?   Plus, then it would be all Stone Ground.   

I thought I was so cool.

Instead of going around and around, the mustard just went up and down.    So I covered it all with plastic and left it over night.   The next morning, it actually started grinding.   Sort of.    So I ground it for a while, then left it until that night.

Once the seeds started really softening, they started grinding a lot better.   Then the mustard started seriously soaking up the vinegar, so I added another part of vinegar.  

We mortared.  We pestled.   We mortared again.  We pestled again.  Then I wrapped it up and left it overnight.  Again.

The next day it was much much softer but still way too rough.  Grinding with the mortar and pestle was working, but too slowly.   I pulled out the stick blender and used that until I was able to get it ground to a great rough consistency that I really like.  

We tasted it and it is delicious!   Thank heaven.   It still has a good mustard kick, but is much milder than the ones we made last year.

If you try mustard this way, try it in a blender first.   Better yet, soak the seeds in the vinegar for a day before you start grinding at all.  These are the proportions I ended up with to get the consistency I like:

Homemade Mustard [Mild-ish]
www.rurification.com

1/4 cup yellow mustard seeds
1/2 cup white wine vinegar

Grind the mustard seeds with the vinegar until you reach the consistency you like.   Store in fridge to maintain that heat level.  Store in cupboard for a milder mustard [after a few weeks or months.]  Makes  3/4 cup.  

Enjoy!

Mustard

I have been dying to try mustard for a long time.    I just love the idea of it.

The problem is we don't actually eat much mustard.  So it wasn't a priority.

Then I read a couple of posts on mustard at Chickens in the Road at the end of October and I decided that it was time.

So I went to Penzey's and got some mustard powder.   And some whole mustard seed.   And then it was the holidays.  And birthdays.  And then we needed to recover.  

And then we made mustard. 

I used a simple recipe and am thrilled to report that it really was simple.    Ridiculously easy.


Simple Mustard

• 1/2 cup mustard powder
• 6 T whole mustard seeds, ground up a bit
• 2  tsp salt
• 1/2 cup water
• 3+ T  vinegar

Grind the mustard seeds a bit to give the mustard the texture you want.   I was going for a stone ground texture, but over-did it.   No matter, it's delish.   If you want to skip the whole seeds, then use 1 cup of mustard powder instead of just 1/2 cup.

Mix the mustard and salt, then add the water and stir until well combined.   Let it sit for 10 minutes to develop the heat.  The longer you let it sit, the hotter it will get.

Add enough vinegar to get the consistency you want.   The acid in the vinegar will counteract the heat.   The sooner you add it, the milder your mustard.   Cook's Illustrated explains why.

We couldn't decide what kind of vinegar to use - we have a dozen different types, so we divided it into three little pots and used a different vinegar in each:  Chive,  Italian Herb, White Wine [my own, homemade white wine vinegar].

The chive is hands down our favorite.   That lovely mild, oniony flavor perfectly compliments the mustard.   I'm in love.

That said, they're all very good, and I think the white wine version would be great as a base for honey mustard and that's on my list to try next.


Storage:   Montana Jones has a nice post about mustards and I'm going to take his advice and leave them out of the fridge for a few weeks to mellow.   When they reach the right flavor, I'll put them in the fridge.