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Tarragon Vinegar
Put in a wide-mouthed bottle one cup of freshly gathered tarragon leaves. Cover with a quart of good, cold cider vinegar. Cork bottle and stand aside two weeks. Shake frequently. Then strain and squeeze through a flannel bag. Pour into small bottles, cork, seal and keep in a cool place.
This vinegar is an agreeable addition to all salads and fish sauces.
A straightforward cold infusion that needs no heat and very little equipment. The variables that matter are the type of tarragon and the strength of the vinegar.
- Use French tarragonRussian tarragon, which is what garden centres often sell unlabelled, is coarse and nearly flavourless; French tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus 'Sativa') is the one worth bottling. French tarragon does not come true from seed, so anything grown from a seed packet is almost certainly Russian.
- A cup of leavesRead this as a loosely packed cup of stripped leaves and soft tips, roughly 15-20 g. Discard woody stems, which contribute little. Leaves picked just before the plant flowers have the most oil.
- Dry the leaves firstRinse if needed, then pat and air-dry thoroughly. Water clinging to the leaves dilutes the vinegar, and it is the acidity that keeps the infusion sound.
- "Good cider vinegar"Use a vinegar labelled 5 percent acidity. Some artisan and unpasteurised cider vinegars run weaker, and a diluted or low-acid vinegar is both a poorer preservative and a flabbier flavour.
- Two weeks, but taste at oneTarragon gives up its anise character fast. Start tasting after seven days; if it is where you want it, strain then rather than waiting out the fortnight.
- Flannel bagA double layer of muslin or cheesecloth, or a paper coffee filter, does the same work. Squeezing extracts more flavour but also more sediment, so let the strained vinegar settle overnight and decant off the clear liquid if you want a bright bottle.
- Bottling and "seal"Wash bottles in hot soapy water and rinse well. Sealing, in books of this period, generally meant wax over the corked neck; a screw cap with a plastic or acid-resistant liner is fine now. Bare metal caps corrode and taint the vinegar.
- Yield and keepingAbout a quart. Stored cool and dark it keeps a year or more, though the perfume fades after six months. A cloudy haze or a gelatinous "mother" is harmless; mould on the surface means it goes out.
Herb vinegars were the working cook's way of keeping a summer flavour through the winter, and tarragon was among the most prized: vinaigre \long ffixture of French cookery, and tarragon vinegar also appears in English household books from the eighteenth century onward. The name is generally traced through the French estragon from a Latin and ultimately Arabic root meaning "little dragon," variously explained by the plant's coiling roots or by an old reputation as a remedy for bites. Its placement under salads and dressings reflects how such a kitchen built flavour: with no year-round supply of fresh herbs, the pantry shelf held the infusions, and a spoonful of tarragon vinegar stood in for the leaf in dressings, béarnaise and the fish sauces the author mentions. The use of cider vinegar rather than wine vinegar is suggestive of an American or at least an apple-growing context, cider being the cheap and widely available acid, though it is not by itself proof of origin.