Dress up your meals with homemade flavored vinegars and vinaigrettes

loading...

Aspiring chefs and inspired gourmets are sure to enjoy making and sharing their own flavored vinegars and vinaigrettes. And food loving friends and relatives are sure to enjoy eating any foods enhanced by these homemade concoctions.

Fruited vinegars are excellent in poultry and pork dishes. Herbal vinegars, particularly those with garlic are an excellent complement to beef and many sauces. Just a couple of tablespoons will enhance the character of many dishes.

Vinaigrettes are useful both as salad dressings and as marinades. They have a shorter shelf life than vinegars and as a rule should be refrigerated and used within a month or two of being put up. A refrigerated vinegar easily has a year of shelf life. The high acidity of vinegar and vinaigrettes allows them to be safely “put up” in bottles that have been sterilized in boiling water without the meticulous precautions of canning. A clean (boiled prior to use) cork or tight-fitting cap will be an adequate seal for a home prepared vinegar-vinaigrette.

Part of the beauty of these vinegars is their containers. Look for unique bottles that will show off your culinary creations replete with whole herbs, spices and garlic cloves. Look for unusual bottles, pretty cruets or wine-liquor bottles for storing, displaying and decanting these culinary gems.

Following is a general recipe for making fruited vinegar. There is ample room for creativity and individual tastes in making such a vinegar. Any ripe fruit such as peaches, apricots, blueberries, cranberries, etc. are suitable. As a rule, citrus fruits are not used to flavor vinegars because they would merely double the acid tastes. Instead, look for a rich redolent fruit that will add body to your vinegar.

Fruited Vinegar

2 cups cider or white wine vinegar

2 cups fruit sliced or mashed with skin-rind

1 cinnamon stick

1 teaspoon whole allspice berries (optional)

Tie fruit, cinnamon and allspice in cheesecloth. Immerse the bag in vinegar in a saucepan and heat slowly to a simmer; cook for 15 minutes. Remove bag, cool vinegar, strain and seal in a sterilized bottle.

Italy’s balsamic vinegar is the cadillac of red wine vinegars. Aged in wooden casks under strict supervision, this elegant vinegar has won the heart of many a cook. Enriched with herbs and garlic, it can be the touch that makes a simple osso buco or roasting chicken a truly memorable meal.

Herbed Balsamic Vinegar

4 cups balsamic vinegar

1 cup fresh basil

4 whole garlic, peeled

4 sprigs fresh basil

2 sprigs fresh oregano

Pour the vinegar into a saucepan. Tear and mash the cup of fresh basil into the vinegar to release the essence. Heat this mixture to a boil. Decant into a sterilized canning jar, add garlic and seal. Allow the vinegar to steep for two weeks. Then strain the vinegar and pour into sterilized bottles adding sprigs of basil and oregano for garnish. Seal bottles.

Hot foods are currently all the rage. This vinegar is an excellent addition to a fajitas marinade because it not only tenderizes the meat, but at the same time imparts a flavor that gets the tastebuds and the tear glands working.

Hot Pepper and Cilantro Vinegar

4 cups white wine or cider vinegar

2 jalapeno peppers, cleaned, seeded and cut in half

2 hot red peppers cleaned, seeded and cut in half

1 bunch fresh cilantro

Clean the peppers and seal them with the vinegar in a sterilized canning jar for a month. Remove the peppers, bottle the vinegar in sterilized containers with sprigs of cilantro.

Oriental Vinaigrette and Marinade

1 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup sherry vinegar

1/2 cup peanut or sesame oil

1/4 cup sherry cooking wine

2 tablespoons grated ginger root

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 scallions, sliced

Combine ingredients and seal in sterilized bottles. Keep refrigerated; use within two months. This makes an excellent marinade and stir-fry sauce. A tablespoon or two blended with mayonnaise makes an excellent dip for crudites (serve with whole water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, snow pea pods and broccoli).

Lemon-Dijon Vinaigrette

2 cups olive oil

1 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup prepared Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

3 shallots, finely chopped

2 tablespoons fresh chervil, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Blend ingredients in a mixing bowl and pour into a sterilized receptacle. Use within a month.

Red Wine Vinaigrette

2 cups olive oil

1/2 cup red wine

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup sweet red peppers, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Combine ingredients. Put up in sterilized containers. Use as a salad dressing or marinade. This viaigrette is excellent as a tenderizing marinade for London broil, beef kabobs and other economy cuts of meat.

Carol Thomson of Fort Fairfield is a free-lance writer.