Projects for Giving: Gourmet Mustard How To Make

 

Honey Mustard with Garlic and Sun-dried Tomatoes,  Beer and Honey Mustard with Tarragon and Orange Zest

THIS JUST IN:  Gourmet foods don't require expensive ingredients, nor do they have to be imported from some far away land.  You don't have to buy them in Gelson's, Bristol Farms, or Whole Foods.  You don't have to go to your city's version of Beverly Hills and pay exorbitant prices in pretentious boutiques.  From my perspective, quality gourmet foods are made using preparation and cooking techniques that are time-honored, often old world, and often handmade in smaller quantities than mass manufactured foods.   Usually they are made with ingredients acquired with special care and usually the ingredients are organic, straight from the source, when possible locally grown to the maker of the food.  Guess what that means?   You can make your own gourmet foods fresh, organic, more intensely flavored and tasting like the ingredients instead of the machines and chemicals used in mass preparations.    

In our house we made homemade gourmet mustard, rosemary lemon salt, and ginger-infused honey to give as presents this holiday season.   See my previous post regarding preparations for these items here. 

In this post, I'll explain how we made two delicious mustards that I can't get enough of!! 

I will post photos of the actual packaging at a later date, along with the pages from the recipe book that will be included with the gifts when we give them.   We made everything ourselves at home from scratch with organic ingredients purchased from their source when possible, none of the ingredients were purchased in retail stores except the beer and even that was from a microbrewery.  The mustard powder and whole mustard seeds were bought online from a spice merchant.  The vinegar came from a source online as well that promised its product was organic.   The honey came from a bee farm I found online as well.  Purchasing ingredients in this way, from the source and in bulk was a cost savings that will blow you away.   

I made fifty 8 oz jars of mustard, including all the ingredients for under $75, including the cost of the jars which were bought online from a specialty bottle company.   In actual hands on preparation time, I may have spent a total of 2 hours total to make the mustard, over the course of two days.  First soaking the seeds, then the next day grinding them and mixing in the other ingredients.  After that, it is simply the passage of time that makes the flavors in the mustard come together over the course of about 10 days.

This mustard can be used for many purposes.... on sandwiches, in marinades, salad dressings, and so many more things... You will find that a jar of this as a gift is appreciated in a way that something impersonal, bought in a store will never be.   The flavor is so much finer... such mustard would fetch more than $10 a jar in a fine gourmet shop.  Making this was a pleasure.  The experience of tasting it was fine.  Somehow finer than if we'd bought it in a store.  The aroma perfumed my house for a few days until the mustard was sealed in jars.   I can't wait for you to make your own.  You don't have to make enough for 50 jars.  A jar will only keep for about 1 month in your refrigerator so, make what you'll use and then give the rest away.

You can be creative with the ingredients as well.  This is a simple thing, not really a recipe at all.  You will simply use equal parts mustard flour (mustard powder) and whole yellow or brown mustard seeds.  You'll need to soak your mustard seeds in the liquid of choice for at least a day or two before combining with the other ingredients.  We used apple cider vinegar and beer to soak one batch, and white wine and apple cider vinegar for the other. 

For 8 oz of mustard you will need 3 tablespoons of mustard seeds, 3 tablespoons of mustard flour, 3/4 cup of combined liquid (beer, water, vinegar, wine...), and any additional ingredients you want to use to create the flavor you desire.  If you decide to add honey to your mixture, subtract 1/3 of the other liquid, but don't add the honey to the soaking phase of the process.  Add it at the end when you add all the other ingredients before grinding.

After soaking the seeds for two days in the liquid, we added the mustard powder, and the other ingredients.  We added dried organic tarragon, organic honey,  and fresh grated orange zest to the beer mustard.  We added fresh finely minced garlic, honey, and sun-dried tomatoes to the other.  I decided to make the beer tarragon mustard a bit smoother and the garlic sun-dried tomato one more course.  To do this we varied the amount of the mixture that we put through the food processor to grind it smooth.  For the course one we processed 1/2 of the mixture in the processor for 5 minutes.   For the smoother one we processed 3/4 of the mixture in the processor for 10 minutes.   With gourmet mustard you want a bit of  whole seed to be present.   You can see from the closeups above, the difference in texture between the course ground and the smoother.  The courser will be spicier.   

It will taste better with time, so don't worry if the flavor is a bit harsh when you first taste it. Once you've gotten the consistency you like, store your mustard away for about 10 days then check the flavor.  At this point, taste it to see if you want to add more salt, more honey, etc... then store your mustard in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to a month.

Enjoy!!!