Making mustard, curing olives

I really like easy-to-make, easy-to-preserve foods that add a lot of flavor to food, and can be grown locally. I recently started following this blog with some great recipes. Two of them fit this bill quite well.

It would seem that making mustard is stupendously easy. Preserving it is easier still: it might dry out, but it will never spoil.

http://honest-food.net/2010/10/18/how-to-make-mustard/

Curing olives sounds slightly more involved, somewhere between making sauerkraut and pressure canning.

http://honest-food.net/2010/10/26/curing-olives-dont-be-afraid-to-lye/

Just wanted to share these.

I love that blog, Joel!  Thanks for introducing me to it. 

I made mustard several months ago, kind of going on instinct.  Ground probably a cup of brown mustard seeds in our grain grinder, then ground just a few wheat berries to clean out the mustard.  Added a little bit of sourdough starter to this seed berry combo, enough apple cider vinegar and water to make a stiff paste, and some salt.  I'm pretty sure that's all that's in there, and it's nice as something to add to a sauce but it's pretty danged spicy for just spreading on things.  I'm pleased to read it can't go bad, I expected as much, but I made a huge jar of the stuff and I don't use a lot of it at once. 

I think the ultimate is stirring a big spoonful of the above mixture into a french egg-butter sauce.  I call my version "bernadaise" cause it's usually somewhere on the spectrum between hollandaise and bernaise, depending on what kind of acid I've got in the kitchen that day.  The egg-butter (I use ghee actually) fat combo helps calm the mustard spice, plus the mouth-feel of that stuff is pretty much unmatched. 

I'm intrigued by using nuts as a fatty spice-soother.  That's an application where using our own black walnuts would be feasible.  The information about cool water vs hot water and adding water before acid is all very interesting too.  When I finally finish my jar I'll be all set to try out different methods to get various results.  I LOVE mustard. 

I miss Philadelphia and that cheese store with open barrels of beautiful multicolored and flavored olives.....so old world and rare in these modern times. 

marina phillips wrote:
I love that blog, Joel!  Thanks for introducing me to it. 

I made mustard several months ago, kind of going on instinct.  Ground probably a cup of brown mustard seeds in our grain grinder, then ground just a few wheat berries to clean out the mustard.  Added a little bit of sourdough starter to this seed berry combo, enough apple cider vinegar and water to make a stiff paste, and some salt.  I'm pretty sure that's all that's in there, and it's nice as something to add to a sauce but it's pretty danged spicy for just spreading on things.  I'm pleased to read it can't go bad, I expected as much, but I made a huge jar of the stuff and I don't use a lot of it at once. 

I think the ultimate is stirring a big spoonful of the above mixture into a french egg-butter sauce.  I call my version "bernadaise" cause it's usually somewhere on the spectrum between hollandaise and bernaise, depending on what kind of acid I've got in the kitchen that day.  The egg-butter (I use ghee actually) fat combo helps calm the mustard spice, plus the mouth-feel of that stuff is pretty much unmatched. 

I'm intrigued by using nuts as a fatty spice-soother.  That's an application where using our own black walnuts would be feasible.  The information about cool water vs hot water and adding water before acid is all very interesting too.  When I finally finish my jar I'll be all set to try out different methods to get various results.  I LOVE mustard. 

I miss Philadelphia and that cheese store with open barrels of beautiful multicolored and flavored olives.....so old world and rare in these modern times. 

If you're ever in my neck of the woods, Berkeley Bowl has a good selection of olives (as well as most everything else). Parking is difficult at the old one; the new one just west of Heinz & San Pablo is more convenient if you're driving.