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Celery Vinegar
2 pounds of the solid celery roots and stalks that you cannot use on the table--all white, however, and sweet. 2 quarts of vinegar. Mince the celery small. Boil the vinegar and pour it to the celery in a stone jar. Add a tablespoonful of salt, stir up, let steep till next day then strain into a demijohn or stone jug and cork it tight. This may be used in almost all salads in place of part of the plain vinegar.
Eight ounces of celery seed scalded with a quart of boiling vinegar and let stand to steep makes the same kind of flavored vinegar as the foregoing. But celery extract ready prepared is cheap enough and more convenient than either.
A one-day infusion that turns celery trimmings into a seasoning vinegar. The method is sound; only the vessels and a few proportions need translating.
- Use a non-reactive panBoiling two quarts of vinegar in aluminium, cast iron or unlined copper will pit the metal and give the vinegar a grey, metallic taste. Stainless steel, enamel or glass only, and the same goes for the steeping jar.
- What the celery isThis is trimmings cookery: the tough outer ribs, the hearts' pale bases and the fibrous root crown left after the tender stalks go to the table. "All white, however, and sweet" is the operative instruction; the author evidently wants only the pale, mild material, and green outer ribs would give a coarser, grassier flavour. Celeriac can stand in for the root portion.
- Vinegar strengthUse a standard 5 percent cider or white wine vinegar. Anything labelled below 5 percent, or a diluted "cleaning" vinegar, is not appropriate here.
- Demijohn and stone jugA demijohn is a large narrow-necked bottle, often wicker-cased, in sizes ranging from about a gallon up to several gallons. Any clean glass bottle with a tight closure does the same job; two quarts is roughly two and a half standard wine bottles.
- The seed version is strongEight ounces of celery seed to a quart is roughly two to two and a half cups of seed, which yields a fiercely concentrated vinegar meant for diluting into dressings. Two to three tablespoons per quart gives a vinegar you can pour straight onto a salad.
- Steeping time"Till next day" is the minimum. Three or four days at room temperature draws more flavour from fresh celery without risk, as the acidity keeps the jar safe; strain out every scrap of solid before bottling so nothing sits submerged and softening.
- Yield and keepingSomewhat under two quarts, once the celery is strained out. Strained and tightly corked, it keeps a year in a cool dark cupboard, though the fresh celery note fades after a few months. Cloudiness or sediment from the vegetable is normal; a mother forming is harmless.
- The author's own footnoteThe closing line recommending bottled celery extract is a practical shortcut rather than modesty about the recipe. Modern stand-ins are celery seed and celery salt, either of which will flavour a plain vinegar with a short infusion.
Flavoured vinegars were the standing seasoning cupboard of the nineteenth-century kitchen, kept alongside tarragon, garlic, chilli and horseradish vinegars and used wherever a cook today would reach for a bottled dressing or a stock cube. Celery was a comparatively expensive crop in the period, grown blanched in trenches and sold by the bunch as a table delicacy to be eaten raw from a celery glass, which is exactly why a recipe like this exists: the tender inner stalks went to the dining room and the cook was expected to get value from what was left. The instruction to use a stone jar reflects the same practical concern as the demijohn and the tight cork, namely keeping a strongly acid liquid away from metal and air. The author ends by conceding that ready-made celery extract is "cheap enough and more convenient".