This is one of the loveliest photos in all my albums. This is chive flower vinegar.
If your garden — or weed patch, as the case may be — is anything like ours, you can't keep up with the chives. They're the first welcome little green things as the snow disappears (around the same time as the crocuses) and before you know it, they're a runaway crop and try as you might, you can't think of another way to use them.
Then the beautiful flowers appear.
It's time for you to act.
Pack some of the beautiful flowers into Mason jars.
Pour white vinegar into the jars to fill them up.
When it's a gorgeous pinky-red colour, strain it through cheese-cloth into pretty bottles.
It has a chive-y, onion-y flavour and so goes nicely in any vinaigrette or simply drizzled over your fresh salad. It can be used in all sorts of creative ways as, of course, all vinegars can. And certainly, if you make a lot, be sure and offer a bottle to your friends.
I love vinegar. I have a pretty little shelf over my stove and although I've tried to keep just the coarse salt cellar and the mortar & pestle up there, this is what it looks like now. It happens, gradually:
The vinegars that didn't make it for the photo shoot but are in regular rotation are the apple cider, rice, plain white, malt and sage — which we've made the same way we made the chive flower: stuff sage leaves into Mason jars instead of chive flowers.
I'm pretty sure I use vinegar every day, in one way or another. Some of the obvious uses — pickles, for instance. . .
. . .are just once or twice a year.
Other obvious uses are in salad dressings and marinades. But just as I agree with that TV chef (I can't remember which one it was) who said there's almost nothing that won't be improved by a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, I also think that a splash of lovely vinegar brightens up any dish and makes the flavours pop. I use it to de-glaze a pan. I add it to onions, celery, carrots and garlic as they're softening to begin a sauce. I use it when the drippings are simmering down during the gravy-making. I use it making the base for soups and stews. The dinner I made today (a biscuit-topped pasta casserole) used tomato sauce I had made earlier in the week — a tomato sauce that had vinegar as one of its secret ingredients.
Often when you use vinegar like this, it will need a little counter-acting. You can throw in a bit of brown sugar or maple syrup. And if you look back at the bottles above my stove, you'll see a bottle labelled "Clic." It's pomegranate molasses — it was bought by mistake, I think — and a dash of it in with a tasty vinegar is a lovely combination.
Some of the ways I've described using vinegar are also the ways you probably use wine in cooking. I use wine also; it adds a deep rich flavour but there are times I prefer the effect vinegar has. It just really wakes up your tastebuds.
This is a favourite cookbook. It has good reading in it as well as recipes. I hadn't looked at it for awhile and I'm happy to say I've just seen a new recipe for peaches — which, by late August, I'll be looking for again if our peach tree has its usual good yield. I'll go right now and mark it on the calendar.
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