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Nasturtium Vinegar
Fill a quart jar loosely with nasturtium blossoms fully blown; add a shallot and one-third a clove of garlic, both finely chopped, half a red pepper, and cold cider vinegar to fill the jar; cover closely and set aside two months. Dissolve a teaspoonful of salt in the vinegar, then strain and filter.
A cold infusion that asks nothing but time and a jar that seals. The vinegar's acidity does the preserving, so the only real variables are the freshness of the blossoms and how well you keep air out.
- Blossoms, fully blown"Fully blown" means open and mature, not buds. Pick dry, in the morning, shake out insects, and do not wash them if you can avoid it; wet flowers dilute the vinegar and can go slimy. The jar is to be filled loosely, so the quantity depends on how airily the flowers sit rather than a fixed measure.
- Cider vinegar strengthUse a commercial cider vinegar at 5 percent acidity. Raw or homemade vinegars of unknown strength are the one thing that could let this infusion spoil, since the acid is the sole preservative here.
- Half a red pepperIn a recipe of this period "red pepper" means a small fresh or dried hot red pepper, cayenne type, not half a bell pepper. Half a dried cayenne pod gives a noticeable warmth to a quart; leave it whole if you want to fish it out early.
- A third of a clove of garlicNot a third of a head. The original wants a whisper of garlic, so a sliver from one clove is correct as written, and the shallot does most of the aromatic work.
- Keep everything submergedBlossoms float. Press them under with a small glass weight or a crumpled square of parchment so nothing sits dry above the surface, and use a plastic or lined lid, as bare metal corrodes in vinegar.
- Two months, out of the lightA cool dark cupboard, not a sunny windowsill; light bleaches the color and cooks off the peppery note. Shake the jar every few days for the first fortnight.
- Strain and filterStrain through a sieve, press the flowers lightly, then filter through a coffee filter or doubled muslin to get the clear liquid the recipe expects. Bottle in sterilized glass and refrigerate; expect it to hold its flavor about a year.
- Yield and useIt is a salad vinegar first, sharp and faintly mustardy, and works well in a plain vinaigrette for greens, in coleslaw, or splashed over cold poached fish.
Nasturtium came to European gardens from South America in the sixteenth century, and the genus name Tropaeolum is Linnaeus's, from the round leaves and hooded flowers he likened to shields and helmets heaped as a battle trophy. The whole plant carries the same mustard-oil pungency as watercress, which is why the common name borrows Nasturtium, the botanical genus of watercress proper. English and American cooks treated it as a cheap kitchen substitute for costlier imports: the green seed pods were pickled as "poor man's capers," the leaves and flowers went into salads, and the blossoms were steeped in vinegar as here. Flavored vinegars were a familiar part of the store cupboard, tarragon, elderflower, chili and nasturtium among them.