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Some Kitchen Kinks: Tarragon
Tarragon Vinegar.
Strip about three ounces of leaves from the branches of tarragon; put into a quart fruit jar and fill with good vinegar. Close and let stand for about twenty days, then strain.
The best vinegar to use for this purpose is white wine vinegar, but good cider vinegar will also answer. The best time to make tarragon vinegar is about the last of August, when the plants are large and vigorous.
Tarragon vinegar may be used for salads and sharp sauces, when the fresh herb is not available.
Butter with Vegetables.
It is almost universally conceded that vegetables require the addition of fat in order that they may be at their best, and there is no fat which is so suitable as butter for the majority of vegetables, judged by the texture of the dish and also by the flavor.
The American housekeeper has a way of looking upon the use of butter, milk, cream, and eggs in the preparation of vegetables, soups, and sauces as if these ingredients were simply "trimmings" and not food.
But it should be remembered that these articles are valuable foods and naturally increase the food value of the dish of which they form a part.
They are all wholesome, and, although almost always more expensive than the vegetable foods with which they are combined, their use in reasonable quantities is certainly to be recommended.
Increasing the cost of the dish by the free use of butter, cream, etc., APPENDIX may after all be economy if the increase is intelligently made, and the vegetable soups, purées, etc., made "hearty" as well as appetizing by the addition of butter, eggs, etc., are combined with smaller quantities of meat and with light and simple desserts.
Savory Drippings.
As a substitute for butter in seasoning vegetables there is nothing better than sweet, savory drippings. Not all meats supply fats that are savory in the sense in which the word is employed here. The following fats may be employed alone or in combination for seasoning vegetables: The fat from fried sausages, ham, bacon, and pork, and from roast pork, veal, and chicken. Fats trimmed from poultry, veal, pork, and ham may be fried out carefully and saved for use in cooking vegetables. Such fats have a flavor which comes from seasoning, as in sausage, from smoke, as in ham and bacon, or from brown material, as in roast meat. The fat skimmed from the water in which poultry has been boiled and the fats skimmed from the gravies of most roast meats may be clarified and also employed in the preparation of vegetables for the table. Great care must be taken that all these fats are clean and sweet, and that the temperature at which they are fried out shall not be so high as to impair the flavor. Burned or scorched fat is not only unpleasant in flavor, but is a frequent cause of indigestion.
When rendering the trimmings of fat meat, add a small onion or a shallot (do not cut them), a few leaves of summer savory and thyme, a teaspoonful of salt, and a little pepper. This seasoning is enough for half a pint of fat. Keep the drippings covered, and in a cool, dry place.
Two usable procedures sit inside this page of kitchen advice: a tarragon vinegar and a seasoned rendered fat. Both are still worth making, with a few adjustments to quantities and storage.
- Three ounces of leaves is a great dealStripped tarragon leaves are light and bulky; three ounces by weight will pack a quart jar almost solid. For a jar you can actually close and strain, one to one and a half ounces (roughly 1 to 1 1/2 packed cups) gives a strong, clearly flavored vinegar.
- Which tarragonThe plant meant here is French tarragon, which is propagated by division and never sold as seed. Seed-grown "tarragon" is the Russian sort, which is hardier and nearly flavorless; it will produce a disappointing vinegar.
- Vinegar strengthUse a commercial vinegar labeled 5 percent acidity. White wine vinegar is still the right choice, as it does not fight the herb; cider vinegar works but pushes the result sweeter and browner.
- Twenty days is about rightTwo to three weeks at room temperature out of direct sun extracts the flavor fully. Longer steeping does not improve it, and leaves left in indefinitely turn dull olive and taste hay-like.
- Late August, and whyThe book says only that the plants are then large and vigorous; herb flavor is generally held to be strongest just before bloom, which may be what lies behind the timing. Pick in the morning, and do not wash the leaves unless you dry them thoroughly — water dilutes the vinegar and encourages cloudiness.
- Strain and storeStrain through a cloth-lined sieve, bottle, and cap tightly; a whole sprig added for looks should be fully submerged. Kept in the dark, it holds good flavor for about a year. Yield is roughly a quart.
- Rendering the drippingsRender fat trimmings slowly over low heat, keeping it below about 250°F. The warning against scorching is the hinge of that section: once fat browns it tastes of nothing but burnt, and it will not improve on standing.
- Storing fat, then and now"A cool, dry place" meant a cellar or larder. Fat rendered from raw trimmings, and especially fat skimmed from gravies or poultry broth, carries meat juices and water and should be refrigerated and used within a couple of weeks, or frozen. Strain it through cloth before storing so no meat particles remain.
Tarragon vinegar belongs to the French kitchen's habit of preserving a herb whose flavor does not survive drying — dried tarragon loses most of its anise character, so the leaf was traditionally carried through winter in vinegar. It was often used as the acid in béarnaise, ravigote and mustard-based sauces, and American household books like this one treated it as an ordinary summer job in a house with a herb bed. The surrounding essays on butter and savory drippings mark the period just as clearly: at a time when butter was expensive and meat fat was a free by-product of every roast and every pound of bacon, a housekeeper was expected to render, season and keep her own fats rather than buy shortening. The argument that cream, butter and eggs are food rather than "trimmings" was aimed at the plain-boiled-vegetable habit that domestic writers of the era are said to have complained about.