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Vinegars, Flavoured

Vinegar may be flavoured with herbs and spices, and a good store of these vinegars will prove of great service in cookery. All that is necessary is to procure the flavouring ingredients--such as celery or cress-seed, chillies or capsicums, tarragon-leaves, shallots, etc.--to put them in bottles, cover them with good cold boiled vinegar, and stopper them closely. In a week or two the vinegar will be sufficiently flavoured, and all that will be then necessary is to strain it off and bottle in small bottles for use. In nine cases out of ten the flavouring ingredients may have a second, and even a third, supply of vinegar poured upon them. Tarragon and chilli vinegars are particularly useful for salads; while a few drops of garlic or shallot vinegar added to a pint of gravy will impart a particularly fine flavour. Herbs also, if boiled for a short time in vinegar, will communicate their flavour to it, and the flavour of some fruits, when imparted to vinegar, is very delicious. The acid thus made, when mixed with water and slightly sweetened, constitutes a refreshing summer beverage.