Roasted Pumpkin seeds, AKA Pepitas, are a great treat, and as is the case with many seeds, pretty good for you, too.
My Cousin Sally writes, OK, Eben – Halloween is upon us, which means it’s time to nom on delicious toasted pumpkin seeds! Yay! But here’s the dilemma… Recipes on the Internet vary from 250 degrees to 400 degrees and 7 minutes to 50 minutes. And some recipes boil the little suckers before toasting! What the heck. Thoughts??
P.S. I used to go with the soy sauce and seasoned salt route, but now I’m a fan of the olive oil and sea salt mix. But I’m perplexed by the temp and time…
Sugar Pumpkins – Many good things inside!
Great question! Here’s the drill for making great roasted pumpkin seeds every time.
Remove seeds from sugar pumpkins, and by golly, save or use that flesh for wonderful things, like Pumpkin Flan. Roasted seeds make a great garnish for squash bisque, and make a fabulous garnish on Oaxacan style chiles rellenos.
Boiling pumpkin seeds before roasting makes for crunchy skins.
Simmering the seeds in salted water is a must-do – It helps make the seed covers less chewy, more crunchy, and also gets seasoning deeper into the seeds. It also helps remove any residual stringy stuff.
Use 4 Cups of water with 2 teaspoons salt for every Cup of seeds.
Bring salted water to a boil, then add seeds, stir, and reduce temp to maintain a steady simmer.
Cook for 10 minutes, then drain through a single mesh strainer.
Pat dry with paper toweling.
Preheat oven to 400° F – High temp roasting will give the crunchiest, most consistent results.
Note that Avocado oil is especially good for this – it’s got the highest smoke point.
Savory, like sea salt and cracked pepper, works great on pumpkin seeds.
Season each cup of seeds with,
1 Tablespoon Avocado Oil, (Olive or vegetable oil is OK)
1 teaspoon Sea Salt
Optional –
1/2 teaspoon chile flake or powder
Savory seasonings work better than sweet, as the sugars tend to make seeds prone to burning in a high temp roast. Any combo you like is worth trying – Soy-Lime-Garlic, Lemon Thyme & Sea Salt, Smoked Salt and cracked Pepper, etc. Our Go To Seasoned Salt is fantastic here.
If you really want a sweet version, roast seeds with just the oil, then add sweet seasoning after the roast – The oil will help it stick, and you won’t burn your goodies.
Roast, evenly spread on a baking sheet, for 18 to 20 minutes, until nicely toasted.
Pumpkin Seeds roasted with Sea Salt, Avocado Oil, and Chile Flake
Remove from oven and baking sheet, allow to cool before decimating.
And as my Sis, Ann Lovejoy notes over in her wonderful blog, “Store pepitos in a tightly sealed jar out of direct light for up to 2 months or freeze them for longer storage.”
Chinese five spice powder – Got it in your spice cabinet? Odds are good that you do, but they’re also good that you haven’t used it for anything other than that one Chinese recipe you tried way back when and bought the stuff for – Am I right or am I right? I’m here today to fix that, and to tell you why you should -Five Spice is good for way more than just Chinese cooking.
Classic Five Spice, although more is OK
So, what exactly is five spice? That depends, frankly, on where in China you ask the question. This blend is relatively ubiquitous in Chinese cooking, and culinary regions from all points on the compass points lay claim to its origin. There is, however, some general agreement about the intention of that ancient founder – To provide the culinary equivalent of Unified Field Theory – one powder to rule them all – Five spice touches on sweet, sour, bitter, heat, and salty – A blend for all things, if you will.
Now, that said, five spice is as unique as any other legendary thing. What that means is that every home cook, restaurant chef, and spice purveyor has their tried and true personal blend, and each and every one of those is the best, no questions asked. Truth be told, they’re all correct, because when you make it yours, its exactly what you want it to be – That’s the beauty of discovery and refinement. The end result of today’s exercise should be just that for y’all.
The big question, of course, is this – What are the Five Spices? Turns out, the title is a bit misleading. Take a look at the ingredients on the commercial stuff out there and you’ll find anywhere between five and ten ingredients – Interesting, yeah? That’s because ‘Five Spice’ speaks to the five flavors the blend contains – Sweet, sour, bitter, heat, and salty – Cover those, and the number of ingredients used to achieve it is open for interpretation.
The generally recognized standard however, is star anise, clove, Chinese cinnamon (Cassia), Szechuan pepper, and fennel seed, but again, you might also find regular cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, licorice, anise, turmeric, black pepper, sea salt, and mandarin orange peel as well. There’s nothing wrong with all that, frankly, though as with all things in discovery, it’s best to go to the classic roots first, and then branch out to make it yours.
For us here in the U.S., the blend has an exotic feel to it that can be a real treat for breaking up the ol’ routine. The combination of what Chinese culinary tradition refers to as hot (cinnamon and Szechuan pepper), and cold (fennel and clove), tastes does a really cool double duty with meats, especially fatty stuff – It highlights richness as it cuts through the fat – A neat trick, that.
If you have Asian grocers in your area, check them out and see if they make their own blends – If not, they’ll likely have a favorite that they sell – Diving into those is like touring the regions and towns folks come from – You’ll get a different swing on things from each one.
So, what exactly would you use this stuff on when you whip it out? The quick answer is that five spice is tailor made for proteins – Beef, pork, and poultry will all shine, (and frankly, you can’t make great char sui pork without it), as will tofu, and beans. For dang near anything you’re going to grill, barbecue, or smoke, it makes a fantastic rub. Five spice does great in flour, starch, or bread crumb coatings for fried foods, too. And frankly, there’s nothing in there that wouldn’t go great with savory eggs and veggies. And believe it or not, it’s great for baking too – Add it to a savory scone, pancake, or waffle recipe, for instance.
A note of caution for using five spice on things other than fatty meats – The blend can overpower a recipe really quickly, so a little bit goes a long way. The blend does best when it has some time to work, so employing it in marinades and rubs works best.
The gist of all this is that while five spice is a necessity for many Chinese dishes, it’s great to think outside the box and try it with other stuff as well – It’s easy enough to add a dab to a sample of something you’re cooking – A great way to expand your horizons. This is a blend that, while fundamentally simple, belies that label with a truly fascinating and complex palette of flavors.
Here’s a basic recipe to get you started – Again, use it as a springboard to tailor your own custom blend. As with all herbs and spices, freshness and quality are critical. Harkening back to that bottle you’ve got in your cabinet, chances are good it’s old, and maybe not the best stuff you could find, right? So, go to a known, high quality purveyor like World Spice, Penzey’s, or Penderey’s and buy your stuff there – They really truly don’t cost more than the junk in most stores, and the quality is far superior. Finally, it’s always a good idea to buy whole spices when available as well – They’ll stay fresher longer.
Allow a dry, cast iron skillet to heat through over medium heat.
Add Szechuan pepper, star anise, cloves, and fennel seed to the pan. Toast the spices until they’re notably fragrant, about 3 to 5 minutes. Keep the spices moving constantly to avoid scorching.
Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.
Add the toasted spices and cassia to a spice grinder, blender, mortar and pestle, or whatever you use to grind spices. Pulse the blend to a uniform rough powder.
Store in a clean glass container with an air tight lid – Keep in mind that all spices like a cool, dark, dry environment for storage. Spices are good for about 6 months, properly stored.
Here’s a couple of rubs to get you started.
5 Spice Java Dry Rub
2 teaspoons 5 Spice Powder
1 teaspoon fresh ground Coffee
1 teaspoon Dark Brown Sugar
1 teaspoon Sea Salt
5 Spice Wet Rub
1 Tablespoon Avocado Oil
Juice & Zest from 1 small Lemon
1 Tablespoon 5 Spice
1 teaspoon Sea Salt
Derived from a native New England dish, Maque Choux is a simple, hearty and delicious side dish.
I came across an FB post by Diane Whatley Nix, a friend on a cooking group called Wok Wednesdays, shared an image of Maque Choux made in a wok. Instantly, I was shown a flash of brilliance for the cooking method, and reminded of a delicious dish I hadn’t made since leaving Texas six years ago. Note: If you’re into wok cooking, then you need to check out the group – It’s dedicated to cooking your way through Grace Young’s The Breath of a Wok, and it’s a serious gas!
Maque Choux (AKA mack shoe, muck shoe, muck show, and so on), is the Cajun version of that venerable side dish, succotash. The name may sound French, but it’s probably a Creole derivation of a native term. This is a great side dish at any time of the year, but especially in late summer, when all of the veggie constituents are right outside in the garden.
Many folks know of succotash and assume it to be southern, but that would be incorrect – Succotash came from some of the original occupants of New England – The name derives from a native term, possibly the Wampanoag word msíckquatash, (boiled corn kernels), or the Narragansett sohquttahhash, (broken corn kernels).
Succotash was, and is, a base of fresh corn, some kind of shell bean, and a little protein – nowadays, most commonly bacon, but back then in New England, fish or game. Any number of additional veggies and herbs might be added, like tomatoes, sweet peppers, chiles, fresh herbs and other seasonings – all of which are New World foods and therefore likely as authentic as anything else. There are a dizzying number of ‘authentic’ succotash and maque choux recipes out there, but the truth is that damn near anything you feel like doing will be authentic enough – These are dishes designed to use what was ready at the time, and later down the line, to clean out a fridge, maybe.
Succotash was popular because it was filling and nutritious. That base mix of corn and beans is rich in protein, carbohydrates, essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals. It’s still a popular side dish at many a New England Thanksgiving dinner, and was likely a main course at that original dinner hosted by the locals, to which a ragtag band of Puritans and Strangers were invited. Those settlers quickly learned that the key base ingredients lent themselves readily to drying, which meant a lifesaving, year round food supply for a struggling population.
As us white usurpers spread across the new land, (including my direct ancestor, who arrived in 1636), succotash came along for the ride, morphed by local crops as it travelled. In the south, dang near any corn and bean combo that’s fried up in lard or butter is called succotash, albeit the vast majority of the time, the bean in question will be a lima, and there will almost always be okra.
Those migrants included the Acadiens, French people exiled to the Canadian Maritimes by the Seven Years war between Britain and France in the middle of the eighteenth century. While many Acadiens remain in the Maritimes, a sizable group made their way south to warmer climes, specifically, Louisiana, which was a French colonial holding since about the time the Puritans hit the beach at Plymouth. And of course, Cajuns are in Louisiana to this day, and from that many good things have come, including maque choux.
Study up some on maque choux, and you’ll see one glaring difference from traditional succotash – It don’t have no beans on board. That’s not to say you couldn’t, or that beans aren’t popular in that neck of the woods, because you could and they are -But, when you see how the dish morphed, you’ll understand right away – It’s because of the only aromatic base that we here in the colonies can lay claim to – The Holy Trinity.
We have the Cajun folk to thank for our only original combo – onion, celery, and green pepper, and really, nothing else, (albeit when used in soups and stews and whatnot, some folk do like to whip a little roux right in with it as it cooks, to kind of get a leg up on things). Now, the key to aromatic bases is the ratio, and in that regard, there are a couple of camps for the Trinity – those who do equal measures of each, and those who portion like mirepoix, 50% onion, 25% each pepper and celery. For my mind, it kinda depends on when you’re making it. If we’re talking the non-growing season, I’d go for the heavy onion version, but if you’re in the sweet spot, where those things are right out there in your garden, I’d absolutely opt for equal shares.
As for the protein, again, you can do what you like with no shame. I like local, smoky pepper bacon myself, but down south, a lot of folks are partial to andouille sausage, and you’d be hard pressed to go wrong there. Honestly, anything you’ve got that needs using would be lovely, from pulled pork to shredded chicken, (or even beans.)
Finally, the wok as a cooking method/vessel is simply brilliant. As Diane noted, making maque choux in one adds a perfect crispy crunch to the dish that you’d be hard pressed to get anywhere else. It’s also fast, and fun, and very pretty, so give that a go. This recipe will make enough for four, and maybe some leftovers
Maque Choux a la Urban
3 ears fresh Sweet Corn
4 strips Pepper Bacon
1/2 small sweet Onion
1-2 stalks fresh Celery, including leaves
2 Anaheim Chiles
1 fresh Tomato
2 cloves fresh Garlic
4-5 fresh Chives
1 sprig fresh Thyme
1 Tablespoon Avocado Oil
A few shakes Go To Seasoned Salt, (I prefer our smoky version)
A few twists fresh ground Pepper
Mise en place for maque choux
Cut kernels off the corn in two passes – Take the first to roughly cut the kernels in half,then the second to get what’s left – This gets all the corn milk in play and adds a bit more moisture to the mix – Cut the corn into a plate or shallow bowl. If you’re shy getting to the base of the kernels, flip your knife around and use the spine to scrape out those last, sweet bits – And don’t friggin’ cut yourself.
Stack your bacon slices, cut them down the middle lengthwise, then into roughly 1/2” squares.
Dice the onion, celery, and chiles into roughly equal piles.
Slice the tomato – You can gut it if you like, (M is always offended when I leave the guts in…), or not as you please.
Mince the garlic, thyme, and chives.
Set the wok over a medium high flame and heat through –A drop of water should vaporize pretty much instantaneously when it hits the wok, then you’re ready to go.
Stir fry bacon first – Your wok will thank you
Stir fry the bacon, stirring steadily with a wooden spoon.
When the bacon is about 3/4 of the way you like it, turn the heat up to high and add the avocado oil.
When the oil is shimmering, (not smoking – That’s too hot), add the onion, celery and chiles.
adding the Holy Trinity to maque choux
Stir fry, steadily working the mix to incorporate. When the onions start to turn translucent, add the garlic and stir fry for a minute or so until the raw garlic smell dissipates.
Final ingredients
Add the corn and stir fry steadily to heat through and incorporate – If things are getting a bit hot, turn heat down somewhat – I change heat constantly as I cook on a wok, and so can/should you.
Stir fry the mix until the corn starts to get a little crust and the smells are driving you nuts.
Add the tomato, chive and thyme, a few shakes of seasoned salt and a grew twists of pepper, and stir fry to incorporate all the seasonings.
Ah, the noble chimichanga. Noble? Noble?! Yes, you read that right – here’s a little ode to one of the best damn vehicles for leftovers there is. Sure, we might assume it’s a mongrel member of the Fake Mex Food Club, designed only to fool gringoes into a simulacrum of adventurous eating – but I think we’d be dead wrong.
There’s a raft of origin stories for the chimi, all based in U.S. Tex Mex bastions. Whether it’s the owner of El Charro in Tucson accidentally dropping a burrito in the deep fat frier and uttering a Mexican curse that lead to the naming of the dish, or Woody Johnson of Macayo’s in Phoenix experimenting back in ‘46, they’re likely all a bit of a tall tale. You can bet dimes to dollars they originated in Mexico.
Fill a flour tortilla with frijoles, queso, picadillo, adobada, machaca, seca, pollo, fish or shellfish – that’s the root of a chimichanga. The name probably is a thinly veiled gringo teaser, but who cares when they’re delicious?
Great chimis needn’t be bad for you. You can bake, or as I prefer, shallow fry to crisp and then finish in the oven – that marries the delightful crunch of a crisp tortilla with a perfect hot filling, and avoids the hassle and greasiness of deep frying. What you choose to stuff with will also have obvious bearing on how healthy your finished dish is.
Chimis are perfect for repurposing leftovers. While a traditional stuffing theme will certainly be a nod to Mexican staples, you can make them out anything you want – green chicken curry chimi? Hell yes. Stuff one with veggies, rice, beans and cheese, and you’ve got a delicious, healthy dish. From chicken wings to char siu pork, or firm tofu to refried beans, your imagination is the limit.
When you’re ready to stuff your chimis, layer ingredients in ratios that yield a harmonious blend – there’s no hard and fast rule, it’s all what floats your boat. How much to stuff is largely dependent on the size and elasticity of your chosen tortilla, but avoid overstuffing to a silly degree – that just leads to filling leaking out during cooking, or gods forbid, to CCSF – That’s Catastrophic Chimichanga Structural Failure – and nobody wants to see that…
The typical mix is beans, rice, veggies and cheese, and another protein if you have something that needs to get used. For veggies, you can’t go wrong with onion, garlic, chile, and tomato, but any mix is fine – you can sauté them prior to assembly, but if you go with my two step method, you don’t need to.
For a traditional version, Mexican cheeses are what you want – Asadero, Chihuahua, Manchego, or Oaxaca for filling, and Queso Blanco, Cotija, or Enchilado for topping would be great choices – and they’re easier to find these days with the flowering of local Latin groceries.
If you’ve attempted chimis and exacted less than stellar results, it’ll come as no surprise that there are techniques you need to employ to achieve consistent and attractive results – and yeah, it matters – we eat with our eyes, ya know. There are four points of order to avoid a frustratingly sloppy chimi, and they’re as follows.
1. Fresh tortillas are your best option – they’re far more pliable and tastier than store bought stuff. Pliability is critical to a successful chimi, so if you’re using store bought, here’s your solution – wrap them in a clean, lightly moistened kitchen towel, put them on a plate, and then microwave for 30 seconds – that’ll give you fairly flexible tortillas to work with. Works great for burritos, too.
2. Get your mise en place together, and set out a generously sized station for assembly. Having everything portioned into bowls makes the process more efficient, less frustrating, and far less messy.
3. The tuck – how to properly stuff eludes a lot of folks, so don’t feel bad if you’re one of ‘em. Think of the tortilla as an unfolded envelope – you want to stuff the lower middle section of the tortilla, leaving room on both sides, some below, and a bit more than that above. Next, fold the bottom over your fillings, then the sides over the bottom, and finally, bring the top flap over all, and you’re there. You can seal with a little egg wash, but once you get the hang of it, you won’t need it. Line them up, prepped for cooking.
4. As mentioned above, I firmly believe you’ll get the most consistent flavor blend and crunch from a two step cooking process – a quick shallow fry, then a quick bake. That’ll also give you ingredients that are thoroughly heated through – something often lacking in the deep fried version.
It’s a simple deal – preheat your oven to 350° F, then heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet over medium high heat until the oil shimmers. Add chimis two at a time, and fry them just long enough to get a golden brown crust on the tortillas, flipping with a spatula to get every side done. Transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment, and bake for 20 minutes, and you’re done.
Top chimis with whatever you like – crema, pico de gallo, salsa, lime wedges, cilantro, fresh tomato or onion. Fresh greens make a perfect bedding – we do mixed lettuces and cabbage – use what you like best. Serve ‘em with an ice cold Mexican beer and enjoy.
It’s June, believe it or not, and even here in the Great Northwet, things are starting to warm up. This means that greens are starting to appear in our garden – lettuces and spinach among ‘em. Blessed with a big ass harvest of the latter, M asked, ‘what can we do with spinach other than salad and Greek?’ That’s when chicken Florentine popped into my head.
Funny thing about this dish – while it shows up at Olive Garden and plenty of other faux Italian joints, chicken Florentine is neither Italian in general nor from Florence specifically. Like General Tso’s, it’s a dish likely invented in America, meant to look ethnic and mysterious. Fact is, you won’t find it in Italy – it’d be shunned like pineapple on pizza.
This doesn’t mean it’s not a great dish, because it certainly can be – and it is a wonderful use of fresh spinach. What it does mean is that most of the so-called rules can frankly be ignored. You don’t need cremini mushrooms or some specific pasta shape for your version to by ‘authentic’, because there ain’t no authentic – whatever you like is just fine.
I’ve got no idea where spinach came into the mix as ‘Florentine’ by the way. It’s not really a signature of anything in particular, but it is tasty. There certainly are Italian creamed spinach dishes, and the French version of spinach au gratin comes to mind as well, but that’s about as far as I get – no matter – it all eats.
Chicken Florentine is fundamentally an Alfredo derivative if anything, so maybe somebody harkened back to Catherine de’ Medici and her imported French chefs as the inspiration for the naming of this dish. The Italians call the sauce besciamella, aka bechamel – your basic cream sauce, or alfredo if you like – they’re fundamentally the same thing.
That said, what a great chicken Florentine needs is a well made sauce, and that means a solid aromatic and stock base. The technique you employ, as well as the ingredients, will yield a great dish. Great Florentine should be a stock-based sauce with a little cream, not a cream only or cream heavy thing.
Here’s my swing at it, and I’ll tell ya, it was stellar – you can ask M and Casey if you don’t believe me…
Urban’s Chicken Florentine
Will feed 3 to 4 with leftovers likely
1 1/2 to 2 pounds Chicken Thighs (skinned, boned preferred)
1 Pound Dry Pasta of your choice
2 Cups Stock (Chicken or Veggie)
1/2 Cup Heavy Cream
1/2 large Yellow Onion
1/2 Red Bell Pepper
1 small Roma Tomato
1/2 small lemon
6-8 cloves fresh Garlic
3-4 packed Cups fresh Spinach
1/4 Cup Parmigiano Cheese
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter
2 Tablespoons All Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon Turkish Oregano
1 teaspoon Crushed Sage
1 Turkish Bay Leaf
6-8 twists black Pepper
3 finger pinch Salt
If needed, skin and debone chicken, then pat dry with a clean kitchen towel.
Peel, trim and dice onion, pepper, and tomato.
Peel, trim and mince garlic.
Fine grate cheese.
In a large heavy skillet over medium heat, add oil and heat through.
Add chicken and flour to a large mixing bowl and coat chicken evenly.
Add floured chicken to the hot skillet, and sauté on one side until a golden brown crust forms, about 4-6 minutes.
Flip pieces once and cook other side as you did the first, about 3-5 minutes.
Carefully remove chicken to a plate.
Add butter to the skillet and allow to melt.
Add onion and bell pepper to the skillet and sauté until the onions are semi-translucent, about 3-5 minutes.
Add garlic and tomato, and sauté until the raw garlic smell dissipates, about 2-3 minutes.
Deglaze the pan with a cup of chicken stock, scraping all the naughty bits from the pan bottom.
Add the second cup of stock, and squeeze in the juice from half a lemon.
Reduce heat to a bare simmer, add bay leaf, and simmer uncovered for about 15 minutes.
Bring a stock pot with well salted water to a boil over high heat, and set a colander in your sink.
Add pasta to boiling water and cook until al dente, about 5-7 minutes depending on what you use.
Drain pasta into colander, then return it to the stock pot and cover, unheated.
Add chicken, parmigiano, and cream to the simmering stock and stir well to incorporate.
Add oregano and sage, pepper and pinch of salt to the sauce and stir well.
Simmer sauce for about 10 minutes, until it thickens slightly and coats a spoon.
Toss in the spinach and stir to incorporate well.
Lay a bed of pasta in a shallow bowl, add a piece of chicken or two, and a generous portion of sauce.
What is vinegar, anyway? Truth be told, it’s nothing more than spoiled booze in some form or another. While pedestrian vinegar is plentiful and cheap, there’re two things you notice right away when you check out the good stuff in stores – the bottles are small and the prices are really high. What better reason would you need to make your own?
Great vinegars, from Aceto Balsamico de Modena and Vinagre de Shiraz to Zhenjiang and Sukang Baombang, are legendary for a reason, imbued with amazing depth and flavor. These gems power everything from dressings and marinades, gastrique and finishing notes, to soups, stews and much more. If you’re pickling, distilled white or generic cider vinegars are fine, but when you need something special for all that stuff I just mentioned, it’s time to get cracking in your home kitchen.
If you want to get technical, vinegar is a suspended solution of acetic acid in liquid, usually in the 5% to 9% range for culinary use. It’s been around for as long as humans have been making booze, which means something over 5000 years. Pretty much anything you can ferment can be made into vinegar, and that’s good news, because the vast majority of those options are delicious.
Distilled white vinegar, (AKA spirit vinegar or white vinegar), isn’t actually distilled – it’s made from neutral grain spirits – so you can make a vodka, gin or rum based vinegar too. Cider vinegar comes from just that, and with the recent explosion in local cider production, consider how many amazing variants of that you can make – how about a blackberry ginger or blood orange version? Hell yes.
Malt vinegar? Comes from beer – you can convert any bottle or can of beer, ale, stout, or porter into pretty amazing stuff. Wine vinegar? Your cellar and local store is the limit, which means a bunch of options. Any and all of these will be far better than what you can buy, and incredibly easy to make. And we haven’t even talked about fruit yet.
Almost anything with a decent sugar content can be fermented into booze and then vinegar. 5000 years ago, they used dates and palm sap. Today, pretty much any fruit you can think of is used. Two of my favorites in this regard are pineapple and banana, (actually plantain). Both are Mexican specialties, used from Veracruz to the Yucatán for fish, adobado, guisado, salsa, and much more. They’re subtle and delicious, but they’re hard to find and often out of stock, which is what lead to this post. Friends and I thought, why not take a swing at it? We did, the results rocked, and again, it’s easy and fun, (and perfectly safe I’ll add), so I’m sharing it here.
Making home vinegar from scratch is a two stage process, (but really just one long one, broken into two processes.) You don’t actually have to do much, other than monitor what’s happening and make sure everything is going right. If you’re making vinegar from something alcoholic, it’s simpler yet.
Many folks get a bit freaked about about fermenting because it’s ‘dealing with bacteria.’ Approached sensibly, it’s nothing to be worried about. What we employ to make vinegar at home are naturally occurring, beneficial fungus and bacteria – You’d have to be a troglodyte to not have heard all the buzz about good microbes, bacteria, yeast, and the like in recent years – it’s vital to our health, and what we’re using here plays for the right team.
Once we have alcohol, Mother is all we need to make vinegar – Mother is a beneficial bacterial culture, an acetobacter to be exact. Mixed with air, it converts alcohol to acetic acid, which is what gives vinegar it’s delightful tang. You can buy Mother from brewing and winemaking shops, or snag some out of the bottom of a bottle of real deal vinegar, (like Bragg’s here in the states), or you can make your own, and then keep that going with each batch you make, (that’s my preferred method). When mother is happy, you’ll see powdery whitish stuff and even gooey ropes forming in your liquid – this is very desirable, so when you see that, you’ve know you’ve done well.
Let’s start with a super easy one, wine vinegar. For wine, here’s how it works – you’ll need some fine mesh cheesecloth – something like a Grade 80 unbleached cloth would be perfect, and a rubber band.
Select a white or red wine you like that’s in the 10% to 12% alcohol range – that’s the sweet spot for mother to do its thing – higher alcohol content just isn’t, and lower will deliver vinegar that won’t be shelf stable for long.
Open a bottle and pour yourself a glass, you deserve it. Like it? Then onward – Decant the rest into a sterilized quart mason jar, (dishwasher clean is fine).
Now drape a patch of cheesecloth over the top and rubber band that sucker down – the ability for the yeast in the air to get to the wine is critical – no air exchange, no vinegar, (and the cheesecloth will keep fruit flies out of the mix too.)
Set the jar in a warm, relatively dry spot out of direct sunlight, and let ‘er rip – the conversion to vinegar can take anywhere from 3 to 8 weeks, so be patient.
Perform a weekly check of your vinegar-to-be. If you see a whitish scum on top of your wine as things progress, and everything smells good, you’re on your way – that’s vinegar mother forming. If you get any kind of dark surface scum and accompanying bad smells, that’s not good – Scoop all that stuff off and keep going.
Taste your product weekly – when it tastes like vinegar and smells good, you’re there. Transfer the stuff to a clean bottle and cork it – Vinegar eats metal, so clean glass bottles and cork is the way to go.
Let it sit for a couple days, then pull the cork. If you get a pop, that’s CO2 escaping, a sign that your vinegar isn’t quite done yet – put cheesecloth over the bottle top and give it another week – that should do the trick.
If you want to speed things up a smidge, add 1/4 cup of mother laden vinegar to the wine and you’re off to the races – it’ll cut the production time notably.
Love malt vinegar? Grab a couple bottles of beer, ale, porter, or stout of your choice, and do what we did with the wine. Because of the lower alcohol content, homemade malt vinegar generally won’t have the long term shelf stability other stuff will – but no biggy – just make it more often.
Want to build the ultimate home malt vinegar? Go find a locally brewed ale or stout in that 10% to 12% alcohol sweet spot – it’ll make amazing, shelf stable, vinegar – bring some of that back to the brewery and turn them on, you’ll likely get a free beer – maybe more if they have a kitchen.
On to vinegar from fruit. When we do this, we’re doing the two step process mentioned earlier – first, we’re gonna make booze, and then turn that into vinegar. You can make vinegar from juice, or macerated fruit, or chunks if you’re lazy like me. Juice or macerated fruit allows yeast more access to the fruit, and your process will go faster, but I find it more fun to be patient and let nature do her thing.
The more fruit you process, the deeper the flavor, but there is a ratio to maintain. I’ve found that filling a half gallon mason jar roughly 2/3 of the way with mashed or chopped fruit and then topping off with fresh water is spot on – I get lots of flavor and aroma with minimal fuss.
If you want to increase the fruit content, you can batch infuse. Fill your jar as described above and let it sit for a week, then decant the liquid into another jar through a strainer to catch the fruit. Refill your first jar with fresh fruit and repeat for another week. Do this three or four times and you’ll get a notably more intense flavor profile. It’s a great process for fruit with a lower sugar content.
Once you’ve got a jar full of fruit and water, cover it with cheesecloth and set it in a warm, quiet spot out of full sunlight – This is the point where that local yeast goes to work making booze for you.
Again, you can certainly add a little mother to help speed up the overall process at this point. Since we’re making booze first, you don’t need as much – 2 tablespoons is plenty.
As we did with wine vinegar production, let things go in one week increments. You’ll not likely see much happening in week one, but by the second or third, expect to see little bubbles forming on jar edges and the surface of your mix – that’s CO2 getting produced as yeast eats sugar and converts it to alcohol.
As you check progress, use your nose, mouth and eyes – By the two to three week point, you should smell a faint whiff of booze coming off your jar, and taste that too. Keep an eye on things, assuring that what you sense is pleasant. Anything dark, stinky, or nasty tasting is not desirable – scoop it off and keep going – the good guys should take over again when you do.
After somewhere in the 3-6 week range, the local yeast will have done its thing, and the process changes from alcohol production to conversion of booze to acetic acid. Taste testing now begins to focus on that desired acidity – we all know what good vinegar tastes like, and how sharp it is, right? If you didn’t answer yes to those last questions, shame on you.
Once you’ve reached the desired state of vinegariness, you’re ready to clarify and bottle. Line a chinois or funnel with cheesecloth and carefully pour your vinegar through into a clean glass jar or mixing bowl. A couple of passes will make sure any fruit goo, seeds, skin, etc doesn’t make it to your finished product.
You’ll see ample evidence of healthy mother production – lots of that powdery white stuff and some gooey, ropy stuff too – as you filter, rest assured that sufficient amounts of mother will make it to your vinegar jars.
Bottle in sanitized glass, with clean cork stoppers. You now have shelf stable, incredibly delicious house made vinegar – what kind will you make next?
Now for those two fruit versions I promised
Urban’s Vinagre de Piña
If you want this to be muy authentico, you need piloncillo oscuro (dark) sugar – it’s made from pure sugar cane boiled down to a thick syrup and then poured into cone shaped molds, and has far greater depth and nuance of flavor that our brown sugar. It’s readily available at Latin markets and online.
1 ripe Pineapple
1/4 Cup Piloncillo Sugar
2 whole Cloves
Water to fill a half gallon mason jar
Optional: 2 tablespoons vinegar with mother.
Trim top and bottom from the pineapple, the remove all the skin, skim cutting around the outside edges.
Cut pineapple into roughly 2” chunks.
Cut a hunk of piloncillo and microwave for 15 seconds – that should soften it enough to grate or hand crumble.
Add sugar and cloves to a clean half gallon mason jar.
Fill jar half way with fresh water and stir vigorously to dissolve the sugar.
Add pineapple, then top off the water to within roughly 1 1/2” of the top of the jar.
Drape tight cheesecloth over the top of the jar and secure with a rubber band.
Let sit in a warm, quiet spot out of direct sunlight.
See above and follow specifics of the process. Without added mother, the process will take a good 6 to 8 weeks to complete, a bit faster if you live in hot country.
When you can find it, what often is called banana vinegar is no such thing – the real deal made down in Mexico is made with plantains. Sometimes called cooking bananas, plantains come from the same family, but are a far cry from bananas – they’re starchier, seedier, and have a notable lower sugar content, and generally want to be fried, baked, or boiled and topped with something sweet to be truly tasty.
In Veracruz, the Macho Plantain is the one most often used to make vinegar – it’s big, hence the dubious moniker, and gets used for all kinds of dishes – there’s even an empanada dough made from them.
Machos are among the sweeter of the plantains, not as potato like as some. They make a delightfully subtle, nuanced vinegar. They’re also the variety most grown up here in the states, so you can actually find them pretty readily at local Latin groceries, (they’re readily available online as well). My version uses warm spices you’d likely find in a Veracruzano molé.
Urban’s Vinagre de Plátano Macho
6-8 Macho Plantains
1 Cup Piloncillo Sugar
1 whole Star Anise
1” stick Canela
1 whole Clove
Fresh water to fill a half gallon mason jar
Optional: 2 tablespoons vinegar with mother.
Peel, end trim and chop plantains into roughly 2” chunks.
Cut a hunk of piloncillo and microwave for 15 seconds – that should make it soft enough to grate easily.
In a clean half gallon mason jar, combine sugar, star anise, cinnamon, and clove.
Fill jar half way to the top with fresh water and stir vigorously to dissolve the sugar.
Add plantains and top water off to within about 1 1/2” of the top of the jar.
Drape tight cheesecloth over the top of the jar and secure with a rubber band.
Let sit in a warm, quiet spot out of direct sunlight.
See above for specifics throughout the process. Without added mother, the process will take a good 6 to 8 weeks to complete, a bit faster if you live in hot country.
UrbanMonique 