Monday 19 December 2016

Roman Mustard

I found this recipe while looking for ideas on what to do with the quail I'd gotten. The body of the post says the recipe is "adapted from Apicius, and it's about 2,000 years old". However, one of the commenters notes that the recipe is from a different Roman writer, Columella, from around 1AD. I haven't looked into it any further to see which author the recipe should actually be attributed to. All I know is that it makes freakin' awesome mustard and I think this is going to be my go-to mustard recipe from now on.

I've made mustard before. It wasn't particularly difficult. However, it also wasn't good enough for me to keep coming back to again and again. It was a novelty. Something that was kind of cool to say I could do, but not a replacement for other mustard. This though? This so is! As a basic recipe it makes a delicious, sharp, hot mustard with a thick, slightly coarse texture. A lovely, tangy mustard in its own right. And it seems like it'll take tweaks and modifications really well. I think it would make a wonderful base for various flavoured mustards. You could play around with different nuts or types of mustard seed as well as all sort of additions and inclusions! I am extremely excited at the possibilities here!

Roman Mustard
From Honest Food
1/2 c. pine nuts
1/2 c. slivered almonds
1 c. brown mustard seeds
2 tsp. coarse sea salt
1 c. cold water
2/3 c. red wine vinegar

1. Add pine nutes, almonds, mustard seed, salt, and cold water to blender.
2. Purée on high (or using the frozen drink setting) until mixture looks fairly uniform (or it gets too thick to blend). Let stand for 10 minutes.
3. Add vinegar. Stir by hand a little bit to get some vinegar down to the blades of the blender.
4. Blend on high for a few more seconds to get vinegar evenly mixed and attain a thick, uniform, slightly grainy mustard.
5. Keep in an airtight jar in the fridge for up to a year.

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