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Tarragon Vinegar
Gather the shoots of tender tarragon the day before they are wanted. Put into a gallon jar as many as they will hold without pressing them down, add the thinly-pared rind of two lemons, also half a dozen cloves, fill the jar with white wine vinegar, cork it tightly, and allow it to stand in the sun for two or three weeks. Strain the vinegar through a cloth, squeezing the tarragon leaves well, and wringing them in the cloth, filter it through paper, and then bottle it.
A straightforward sun infusion that needs almost no adjustment, though a few of the assumptions behind it are worth stating.
- Scale it downA gallon jar loosely packed with tarragon shoots is a restaurant quantity. A quart jar with about 2 packed cups of sprigs, the rind of half a lemon and 2 cloves gives roughly the same ratio for a household.
- The vinegar to useUse a white wine vinegar of 5 to 6 percent acidity, which is standard for commercial bottles; the strength of nineteenth-century vinegar was not standardized and may not have matched. Acidity is what keeps the infusion safe, so do not dilute it or substitute a low-acid "salad vinegar."
- Wilt the herb firstGathering the tarragon the day before leaves the shoots slightly wilted. The recipe does not say why, but wilted shoots hold less surface water, which means less dilution of the vinegar.
- Submerge everythingAny leaf standing above the vinegar line can mold. Top the jar right up and weight or push the herbs under before sealing.
- Cork, or notVinegar corrodes bare metal. Use a glass jar with a plastic-lined lid or a plastic film between vinegar and any metal cap; the original's tight cork was doing the same job.
- Sun and timeTwo or three weeks on a sunny sill works, but a warm dark cupboard for the same period gives better color, as sunlight bleaches the green out. Taste at two weeks and stop when the tarragon is assertive.
- FilteringSqueezing the leaves in cloth is what pulls out the last of the anise character, so do not skip it. "Filter it through paper" means a coffee filter or a paper cone; it removes the fine haze and is optional if you do not mind a cloudy bottle.
- Yield and keepingA quart batch yields somewhat under two pints once the herbs and straining losses are accounted for. Stored capped and cool it keeps a year or more, though the aroma fades after about six months; discard any bottle that develops cloudiness with sediment or an off smell.
Tarragon vinegar was one of the workhorse flavorings of the nineteenth-century professional kitchen, the standard route to estragon in a French-trained repertoire where fresh tarragon was seasonal and the dried leaf tasted of hay. It goes into béarnaise, ravigote and countless cold dressings, and Oscar Tschirky treats it as a basic preparation rather than a dish. The herb itself, Artemisia dracunculus, is often said to take its various names from a supposed resemblance of its coiling roots to a small dragon or serpent. Vinegars flavored in the sun with herbs, garlic, shallots or berries were a long-established household economy in both Britain and America, and printed recipes for them run back well into the eighteenth century.