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Tomato Vinegar
Cut three dozen large, ripe tomatoes into quarters, but do not separate them; rub one-half pound of salt over, put them into a large jar, and set it in a cool oven, or by the side of the fire for a day or two. Then put in one-half pint of mustard seed, a sliced clove of garlic, and a little each of cloves, mace and grated nutmeg. Pour over them two quarts of boiling vinegar, tie a piece of parchment or bladder over the jar, and keep it in a warm place for six days, shaking it well every day Afterwards place the jar in a dry store-cupboard for two or three weeks; then strain the liquor, and when clear put it into small bottles and keep them tightly corked.
A spiced tomato-infused vinegar in the older English style, meant to be used by the spoonful in sauces, gravies and dressings rather than drunk or poured freely. Most of what needs translating here is equipment and vessel language rather than technique.
- Vinegar strength is the hingeEverything depends on the vinegar being strong enough to preserve several pounds of watery tomato. Use a standard 5% acidity cider or white wine vinegar and do not substitute anything labelled "reduced acidity" or a drinking vinegar. If the finished liquor tastes flat rather than sharp, it should not be kept at room temperature.
- How much tomato that isThree dozen large ripe tomatoes is somewhere in the region of 12 to 18 lb, depending on what you count as large. The half pound of salt is roughly three-quarters of a cup of table salt, or more by volume if you use coarse kosher salt. Half a pint of mustard seed is one cup.
- "A cool oven, or by the side of the fire"This means a warm resting place, not cooking: a barely warm oven, or simply a warm spot on the counter. The purpose is to let the salt draw the juice out of the fruit over a day or two, not to bake it.
- Parchment or bladderA dried animal bladder was a common flexible seal before rubber and cellophane. A double layer of parchment tied down tightly with string will do the same job of sealing the jar and keeping insects and dust out.
- Cut but not separatedQuartering the tomatoes without cutting through gives the salt access to the interior while keeping the fruit in one piece; presumably this also keeps the pulp intact for a cleaner straining later.
- Mace and clovesMace is the lacy outer covering of the nutmeg seed, sold as blades or ground; it is more delicate than nutmeg itself. "A little each" is left unquantified -- cloves and mace are assertive, so a teaspoon of each in this volume is a reasonable starting point.
- Straining and bottlingStrain through a fine sieve lined with damp muslin, and let it settle before bottling so the sediment stays behind. Bottles and corks should be scalded first.
- Yield and keepingYield is hard to predict; you start with two quarts of vinegar and gain whatever juice the tomatoes give up, less what stays in the pulp. The tomato dilutes the vinegar considerably, so despite the original instruction to store it in a cupboard, refrigerate the strained bottles and discard any that turn cloudy, gassy or grow a surface film.
Flavoured vinegars were the everyday condiment of the English and American kitchen long before bottled sauces were sold by the case: cooks kept horseradish vinegar, tarragon vinegar, cucumber vinegar and camp vinegar on the shelf and used them the way a modern cook reaches for Worcestershire or a splash of sherry. Tomato versions belong to the same nineteenth-century enthusiasm that produced tomato catsup, when the fruit was being pushed into every preserving jar available. It appears in Oscar Tschirky's 1896 collection. The instruction to tie a bladder over the jar is the clearest period marker in the whole recipe an ordinary butcher's by-product doing the job later taken over by rubber rings and screw bands.