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Vinegar, Seasoned, for Salads
Take of shallots, tarragon, savory, and chives, three ounces each, and of balm and mint one ounce each; dry these ingredients very carefully, and bruise them. Put them in a wide-mouthed bottle, pour upon them a gallon of vinegar, and cork the bottle securely. Put it in a warm place, leave it for two or three weeks till the vinegar is strongly flavoured, pour off the liquor, and press the herbs very dry with a wooden spoon. Let the vinegar stand to settle for a few hours, filter it, and put it into small bottles. Cork closely, and store for use.
A straightforward cold infusion that needs almost no adjustment, though the quantities are built for a Victorian household and the word "dry" is doing more work than it appears to.
- Scale it downAn imperial gallon is about 4.5 litres, and the herbs total 14 oz, near enough 400 g. A quarter batch — a little over a litre of vinegar, 20 g each of shallot, tarragon, savory and chives, 7 g each of balm and mint — fills several small bottles.
- What "dry these ingredients" meansThe recipe does not say how far to take the drying. It may mean no more than driving off surface and cell moisture so the herbs do not dilute the vinegar, in which case wilting on a rack for a day is enough; it may equally mean properly dried herbs. If you substitute shop-bought dried herbs, use rather less than the stated weights.
- Balm and savoryBalm is lemon balm (Melissa officinalis); savory here is most likely summer savory, the milder of the two. Both are garden herbs rather than supermarket ones, and both are easy to raise from seed if you cannot find them.
- Choice of vinegarThe recipe simply says 'vinegar' and does not specify a type. Use one labelled 5 per cent acidity — that acidity is what makes an infusion of raw shallot keep safely at room temperature. Cider or white wine vinegar both work.
- "A warm place"Beside the range or in a sunny window; the book gives no temperature. A kitchen counter out of direct sun is fine. Shake the bottle every few days and go by the recipe's own test — pour off when the vinegar is strongly flavoured, somewhere between two and three weeks.
- Pressing and filteringPressing with a wooden spoon rather than metal avoids any reaction with the acid. For the final filtering, a double layer of muslin catches the leaf debris and a paper coffee filter takes out the haze; skipping this leaves sediment that goes musty in the bottle.
- Bottling and keepingSterilise the small bottles and use plastic-lined or plastic caps — bare metal corrodes. Stored cool and dark it keeps well, though the herb flavour will dull over time.
- Yield and useThe quarter batch gives a little under a litre once the herbs have absorbed their share. Use it three parts oil to one part vinegar in a vinaigrette, or a spoonful to finish a béarnaise base or a plate of cold chicken.
Seasoned or "salad" vinegars were a standing item in the Victorian storeroom, made in quantity once a year when the herb bed was at its fullest and drawn on for months afterwards. The particular combination here — shallot, tarragon, savory, chives, balm and mint — is a herb mixture pushed towards preservation. A flavoured vinegar of this kind was a base ingredient, like stock or a spiced butter. The practice faded with the arrival of commercially bottled tarragon and wine vinegars, though the method never stopped working.