Mustard recipe

This recipe is from the " Pickled Pantry" by Andrea Chesman. Best cooking type book I ever bought. Makes 1 and 1/2 pints.

Four oz. mustard seeds or half a cup + 2 Tablespoons
1 cup white wine ( I used chard.)
1/2 cup white wine vinegar or any other kind *
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 tea of allspice - I use 1/4
1/2 teaspoon pickling salt
optional- 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil or 1 table of favorite dried herbs

Put mustard seeds in small bowl, cover with water, wine, and vinegar and let soak overnight. Note: we live in a dry climate and a longer soak seems to work better.

transfer to food processor, add honey , allspice and salt. Blend until mixture is thick and smooth. If to thick add more of any of the liquids one tablesp. at a time. Give a final blend with the herbs and pack into sterilized pint or half pint jars. Store in refrig. up to 6 months.

*the vinegar you use will determine the flavor. White vinegar is to sharp for me.
Maple syrup can sub for the honey.  

The first time I made it I followed the recipe in the book. There is a misprint, calling for only 2 ozs. of seeds. One half cup + 2 Tablespoons = 4 ozs.

You will have some that stay as seeds. Next batch is going to be a combo of yellow and brown seeds.

chard wine????

Chardonnay, dear!

Thanks Scorpio I have a hard time spelling ( but not drinking chardonnay).

Hey, with this group, chard wine isn't a hard reach.

TRUE, Sanderson!

Interesting recipe, John.  Thanks for sharing it....  AND the book.  I'll have to see if the library has a copy.

Anytime. BTW the book is worth every cent I paid for it, I found it in one of those urban homesteading stores that sell chickens and canning supplies and stuff like that.
The recipe needs to be tweaked to fit where you live and how dry the mustard is. I am learning as I go, the batches aren't very large and  you can go through the mustard pretty quickly.

Yum! I love mustard....I have like 10 versions right now.

Sounds mighty tasty. Definitely need to try this one.
Thanks for sharing

Thanks! Now I have to figure out where to get mustard seeds cheap.

P.S.: I guess if you had seeds left over in your mix at the end, you could force the stuff through a strainer and solve that problem.

Marc,

Although I haven't tried it (yet), it might be possible to plant mustard seeds of various kinds and harvest the seeds to make mustard!  Meanwhile, one could eat some of the greens.  

Also, bees seem to like the blossoms of mustard plants.

Whole foods and others have mustard seed in bulk. I bought a pound of seeds for like $7.00 and it makes four batches of 1.5 pints. I think that's pretty cheap except for the expensive (box) wine that I use.

Whole Foods for the seeds and 2 Buck Chuck for the wine!

Ah, the joys of boxed wine, with toilet paper roll straws, out back of a night under the bridge with Two-Finger-Larry and Hobo Jaunty Smith! Yeah, me and the boys woke up from many a midnight soiree with only the Franzia to thank for our not dehydrating from the sterno pudding shots after soaking our trousers.

Just kidding -- I use it a lot to deglaze, and sometimes to drink, though I have to steel myself to the task. Some of the white is okay, but I'm still convinced the reds have anti-freeze in them.

Sadly, CO has stupid liquor laws so that a chain store can only have a liquor license in one location for the whole state. The 2 buck (3 buck) chuck is in Bolder/Denver and not close to where we live. But I agree with Marc, some of the boxed whites are ok. My best bet is Rex Goliath in 1.5 liter bottles when on sale it comes to $3.50 per half bottle. When we are in AZ the grocery stores all have it so it is cheaper.

Wait. Colorado, that recently legalized pot, has restrictive liquor laws?? Go figure.

sanderson wrote:Wait.  Colorado, that recently legalized pot, has restrictive liquor laws??     Go figure.

That is my exact thoughts when I read the post.  Politicians!  If they sell marijuana, they can collect more sales taxes.  But as far as wine goes, if you cant buy one brand, then you will just buy another brand, so no loss in sales taxes to the gov.

I love the recipe and wonder if you grew the mustard?  if so how many plants would you put in a square foot, or did you do a larger garden?  I see that for greens i would need 16 plants but would this change for seeds?

Hi Cats! Welcome from Atlanta, GA. We're glad you're here & bringing up some older threads that have been neglected recently. :-)

Whatever you can plant as plants per sq ft should be what you plant as seeds. That way you're not having to go through the time consuming, usually wasteful process of thinning.

I'm not sure if this is Cats' question, or if the phrasing has reminded me about asking a different one -
Do you plant a different number of mustard plants per a square for growing mustard-seeds instead of mustard-greens?

I'd plant 16 per square for baby mustard-greens (I like the frilly ones/mizuna as young salad greens), and 9 per square for 'regular' mustard-greens.

Searching online it looks like 4 per square (6" spacing) is the planting density recommended for growing mustard for mustard-seeds. Has anyone done a comparison between 4 vs 9 as to which is better for a better harvest of seeds?

I'd been meaning to look this up for this year. I meant to grow black mustard for seed last year, but it fell by the wayside and I planted in fall - and late at that - in a window box. They bolted too quickly, and I threw the whole mess in the garage sometime after the first frost in the hopes that the few pods of seeds I got would finish maturing/dry out.

This year my plan has 3 squares of black mustard in the early spring - and now I know that I'll want to plant 4 seeds in each of those squares.

thank you for the postings.  I have a 
"plan" that I will plant four, nine and 16 and see what happens.  I want a lot of seeds but like chomping as well.  In my climate bolting is often too soon.

Hi, Cats, Welcome to the Forum from California. Would you like to go to the Home page and "Introduce Yourself." What else to you grow where you live.

hmmm maybe

JohnP
Your mustard recipe sounds delicious. I will try it. The other night I made a small batch of spicy mustard made from a base of seeds, kombucha vinegar, etc.  You gave me this new idea to add raw honey, so thank you very much for that.  Will finish my batch then try yours.