Recipe#8477

Title: Flavoured Vinegars

  From "The French Farmhouse Kitchen", Eileen Reece, Exeter Books,
  1984. ISBN 0-671-06542-4
  
  Posted by Stephen Ceideberg; May 13 1993.

----------------FOR EACH 1 LITRE WINE BOTTLE---------------------
      1 l  (1 3/4 pints) plain wine
           -vinegar
      4    Or 5 shallots, peeled and
           -slightly crushed, threaded
           -on fine string or
      4    Cloves garlic, peeled and
           -slightly crushed or
      2 tb Mustard seed or
      1    Long leafy branch tarragon
           -twice the length of the
           -bottle
 
  Flavoured wine vinegar has been an important ingredient in French
  cooking since medieval times when vinegar was essential in order to
  keep meat edible in warm weather.
  
  In the 13th century, street vendors were granted the right to cry
  their wares in the thoroughfares of Paris.  These cries soon became
  famous, and the vinegar sellers even rolled their casks through the
  narrow streets crying 'Garlic and mustard vinegars, herb vinegar...  '
  
  'Vinaigres, bons et biaux.'
  
  They also sold verjus, the sieved juice of unripe grapes which serves
  to sharpen the flavour of many cooked dishes in the same way that
  vinegar does.  It is still used in some country places and provides a
  means of using up green grapes unfit for any other purpose.
  
  All farm kitchens have an earthenware vinegar barrel.  It constitutes
  another of the many country economies.  After the grape harvest, a
  certain quantity of either red or white wine is reserved and poured
  into the barrel over a liquid fungus or mere de vinaigre which turns
  it into vinegar. The quantity drawn off each day is replaced by
  emptying the remains of the wine bottles into the barrel.
  
  When herbs are most pungent, just before flowering, they are cut and
  used to aromatize some of the vinegar drawn off.  It is then bottled
  and used for flavouring.
  
  Owning a vinegar barrel is a privilege of which few English kitchens
  can boast but plain wine vinegar sold in the multiple chemists' shops
  can be used effectively with home-grown herbs to produce fine vinegar
  at much less cost than that prepared commercially.
  
  FLAVOURED VINEGAR:
  
  Collect the number of bottles necessary, with sound corks to fit.
  Wash the bottles in hot soapy water, rinse first in very hot water
  then in cold, drain, dry and heat in a slow oven.  Scald the corks in
  boiling water.
  
  Pour the vinegar into an enamel-lined or stainless steel pan and over
  a low temperature bring slowly to blood heat.  It should be quite
  warm to the touch of a knuckle joint, no more.  Add shallots, garlic,
  mustard seed or tarragon to the warm bottles.  (If using tarragon,
  this should be bent double and pushed down the neck of the bottle.)
  Fill up with warm vinegar, cork down tightly, and place on a sunny
  window sill to mature for 6 weeks before use.