Q: On a trip to Napa I picked up a locally made, barrel-aged Cabernet vinegar. It's delicious — slightly sweet and fruity — but I can't eat vinegar by the spoonful.
What can I do with this vinegar? Will it work as a marinade? It's a bit too sweet to pair with olive oil as a salad dressing, and I'm not creative enough to think of any other ways of using it.
Sent by Liz




I agree, paired with fruit sounds good. I recently had saba (a sweet, grape vinegar (?)) and berries over vanilla ice cream and it was wonderful. It would also probably be good in a berry tart - I saw a recipe for strawberry balsamic tart early this summer and could see it being successful with the cabernet vinegar.
Maybe mix it with something more acidic for salads? A bit of citrus, something savory to balance the sweetness.
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I bet this would be amazing reduced and drizzled on figs.
Eve
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I second strawberries and figs. There's a fabulous fig tart with mascarpone cream somewhere on LA Times' website that calls for a balsalmic glaze and I bet this would work great. Search their site for it, it shouldn't be hard to find. It's kind of a pain but can be done in steps and assembled at the last minute. Making the figs look utterly gorgeous on top is way, way easier than I anticipated.
This might also be good drizzled over good vanilla or fruit ice cream. Try subbing it in recipes you find for balsalmic vinager, too.
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I wonder how this would be in a vinegar pie. A friend of mine made a balsamic vinegar pie topped with raspberries glazed with a vinegar raspberry reduction and it was heavenly.
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Making a reduction and drizzling it over risotto (after it's plated) could look and taste amazing - I do this with balsamic syrup all the time.
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Use it instead of Vanilla in baked goods (although you may want to up the baking soda a little to counteract the extra acid)
Make a Fruit Mousse with it (such as this Balsamic Strawberry Mousse)
A sorbet or fruit ice
To "sour" milk for any sweet baked good that you would use buttermilk in.
To reconstitute dried fruit
Add it to caramel (or fudge for that matter) and top ice cream (or other dessert with it)
Use it in place of Cream of Tartar for Meringues or Pavlova
Del
Delementals
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