As curious cooks and condiment lovers, we have tackled recipes for homemade ketchup, hand-beaten mayonnaise, and DIY hot sauce. Now, inspired by a recent piece in the Guardian, we're about to add mustard to the list.
An except from The Mustard Book by Rosamund Man and Robin Weir makes the process sound time-consuming, but not difficult. With the help of a food processor, "making mustard is easy," the authors write.
First, you must soak the mustard seeds for at least 24-36 hours; you can use vinegar, grape juice or must, water, or even "broth of powder'd beef" according to a 17th century recipe. This is followed by breaking up the seeds in a food processor and then using sieves to separate the paste from the husks ("in Dijon, these are fed to the pigs; in a Bordeaux mustard, some of the crushed hulls are left in the mustard"). The final step is seasoning, which is where you can get creative with spices, herbs, and sweeteners.
Have you ever made mustard? Do you have any good recipes or tips to share?
• Read the article: How to make mustard at home (Guardian)
Related: Rhubarb Melting Moments and Homemade Mustard
(Image: Flickr member jeffreyw licensed under Creative Commons)
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Speaking of mustard... (which I am typically not a huge fan of) Raye's Mustard of Maine is pretty fantastic!!
I made a couple of wonderful mustards this summer with leftover fruit and the abundant sage that was taking over my garden. Both recipes were from the Ball book of preserving and were super easy - apricot sage mustard and lemon sage mustard. The apricot mustard makes a great glaze for pork.
I also tried Ball's lemon-sage recipe (I have a huge sage plant), but I've also tried their cranberry mustard recipe (I usually have a huge supply of cranberries -- my family has a bog and I get a shipment every year). I'm thinking it'll be very good for the annual day-after-thanksgiving-leftover-turkey-sandwich, for one.
I swear there was a fermentation step in mustard making... ?
My mom makes a killer mustard, which we use especially at christmas time with the "julskinka", christmas ham or however it's translated (behind part of the swine). It's based on Colman's "Double Superfine Mustard Powder", an English product, and the first step is obviously superfluous.
There's cream and egg (only yolks maybe?) in her recipe, thereby making it thicker as well as richer than the recipes on the can itself. I will try it out for the first time this Fall and cross my fingers already, even though she claims it's not difficult at all; the trick lies in using a water bath apparently.
I recently bought black mustard seeds, can I make a mustard just out of that? or do i need yellow seeds also?
i made some mustard earlier this spring after not being able to find a v good selection of the grainy kind. it's actually really easy. the basics are: 1. soak seeds overnight in water and a little acid. 2. add seeds plus extra liquid, salt, sugar (and other spices if you want) to a blender and mix until you like the texture. 3. let it sit for at least a day to come to full potency. done! i didn't use powdered mustard in mine, just seeds, but many posts did suggest it. i also tried to blend my in a small food chopper, which didn't really work. a blender was the best option to break up the little devils. it was fun to do, and since i use a lot of mustard in many things, i just make small batches and adjust the recipe as needed.
Nossi--I'm most familiar with black mustard seeds in Indian cooking. (When I couldn't find any one time, I tried using yellow, and, as my father-in-law would say, there was "no taste coming.") But it would be an interesting experiment to try making spreadable mustard out of black seeds!
If you guys really want to spice things up, check out this link
http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-on-internet-almost-falls-into-world-of-diy-mus,17013/
@mustard_lovah Haha!
bittman's recipe for grainy mustard is super easy:
1/4c yellow mustard seeds
1/4c black/brown mustard seeds
1/2c vinegar (5% or more i believe, i use cider)
1/2c water, wine, beer, etc. (i've used stouts, bocks, dortmunder)
pinch of salt
combine all in glass jar, let sit in fridge 1-2 days. blend.
voila! you have mustard, and it lasts a good long time. if you put fresh herbs or honey or the like into it, its shelf life is shorter, so be mindful of that.
i also highly recommend a stick blender for this -- mine fits perfectly in the glass jar i have to use, so it's a one-container production with no real dishes to do until the mustard's gone!
Yes, making mustard is easy. I make a hot sweet mustard every spring just before Easter. lots of ingredients but very tasty.
I made mustard a couple of weeks ago. I bought DIY Delicious by Vanessa Barrington and tried one of the recipes in there. My family and I really liked it and it was really good in sandwiches. I plan on making my own from now on, it's too simple not to! I liked buying different mustard before but the grocery store only has so many, when you make your own there's no limit really.
any such name - thanks for posting that I read that a while back in the NYT but did not bookmark. great post!
The Onion article is hilarious!
@CaliH: you are right, there is a fermentation process involved ;-)
Considering the size of my mustard collection, I probably should learn to make my own. :)
"Very good post...well i think writing this kind of article is a tough job. Thanks for your blog.
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