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Fines Herbes Vinegar
INGREDIENTS. 2 cups of tarragon vinegar. 2 cloves of garlic, chopped 2 tablespoonfuls of garden fine. cress, chopped fine. 2 tablespoonfuls of sweet 4 small green capsicums, chopped fine. marjoram, chopped fine. 2 shallots, chopped fine.
Method. Mix the ingredients in a pint fruit jar, cover closely, and set in the sun; after two weeks strain, pass through filter paper and store in tightly corked bottles.
The ingredient list has been scrambled by the two-column layout of the original page; read it as tarragon vinegar, garlic, garden cress, sweet marjoram, shallots and small green capsicums. The method itself is simple, and the acidity of the vinegar does all the preserving work.
- The list, untangledTwo cups tarragon vinegar; 2 cloves garlic, chopped fine; 2 tablespoons garden cress, chopped fine; 2 tablespoons sweet marjoram, chopped fine; 2 shallots, chopped fine; 4 small green capsicums, chopped fine. All the herbs are fresh, not dried.
- CapsicumsIn period usage "small green capsicums" means small hot or mildly hot green chillies, not bell peppers. Four serranos or a couple of jalapenos give roughly the right heat; seeds left in make it noticeably sharper.
- Garden cress and sweet marjoramGarden cress is the peppery seedling herb (often sold as cress or lepidium), not watercress, though watercress is a reasonable stand-in. Sweet marjoram is milder and sweeter than oregano; if you substitute oregano use half as much.
- Jar sizeTwo cups of vinegar plus six chopped ingredients will not fit a pint jar with room to shake. Use a quart jar so the solids stay submerged, which is what keeps them from spoiling.
- The sunSetting the jar in the sun is gentle heat extraction, nothing more. A warm windowsill works; so does a dark cupboard if you extend the steeping to three or four weeks. Shake it every few days.
- Acidity is the safeguardGarlic and shallots submerged in commercial vinegar (5 percent acetic acid) are acidified, which is why this two-week room-temperature infusion is sound. The same aromatics in oil are not, and the two methods should not be confused.
- FilteringStrain through a fine sieve first, then a coffee filter or a doubled coffee filter in place of the laboratory filter paper. Expect the filtering to take an hour or two unsupervised; forcing it clouds the result.
- Yield and keepingAbout 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups after straining. Sealed and kept dark, it holds a year or more, though the green fades toward olive after a few months.
- Using itStrong stuff, closer to a seasoning than a salad vinegar. Start with one part vinegar to four parts oil, or use it a teaspoon at a time to sharpen mayonnaise, tomato salads and cold meats.
Flavoured vinegars were a fixture of the late-Victorian and Edwardian larder, and a cook who wanted variety in her dressings, with a limited range of bottled condiments available, made them herself from a shelf of steeped vinegars. Fines herbes is borrowed from French kitchen French, where it denotes a fine-chopped mixture of soft green herbs, classically chervil, parsley, chives and tarragon; here the name is used loosely for whatever aromatic mixture the household grew, with garlic, shallot and green chilli pushing it well past the Parisian original. The instruction to set the jar in the sun and then pass the strained liquid through filter paper is characteristic of the period's household chemistry, when domestic-science writers were keen to have kitchens work with the tidiness of a laboratory. Tarragon vinegar, the base here, was among the flavoured vinegars sold ready-made, so the recipe builds on a bought foundation rather than starting from plain cider or wine vinegar.