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Tarragon Vinegar
Gather the tarragon just before it blossoms, strip it from the larger stalks and put it into small stone jars or wide-necked bottle; stalks and put it into small stone jars or wide-necked bottle; and in doing this twist the branches, bruising the leaves. Pour over it vinegar enough to cover; let it stand two months or longer, pour off, strain, and put into small dry bottles, cork well and use as sauce for meats.
A straightforward cold infusion that still works exactly as written, with a few adjustments for modern vinegar and bottles.
- The hinge: bruise, don't chopTwisting the branches to bruise the leaves ruptures the oil cells and is what gives the vinegar its flavor. Chopping or blending releases chlorophyll and green, grassy notes instead, and makes the vinegar cloudy and hard to strain.
- Which tarragonThis means French tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus var. sativa), which is grown from cuttings and rarely sold as seed. Russian tarragon, the seed-grown plant usually sold at garden centers, is coarse and nearly flavorless and will produce a disappointing vinegar.
- Cut before floweringThe instruction to gather just before it blossoms is not sentiment: the leaves hold the most volatile oil at that point and turn bitter and thin once the plant flowers. Mid-morning, after the dew has dried, is the usual advice.
- Vinegar and vesselUse a white wine vinegar or cider vinegar at 5 percent acidity; distilled white is harsher but keeps the flavor cleanest. Glass or the stoneware specified is right. Do not infuse in aluminum, copper, or unlined iron, which react with acid.
- Keep the herb submergedAny leaf standing above the vinegar can mold. Weight the tarragon down or top up with vinegar, and keep the jar covered and out of direct sun.
- Two months is generousModern practice gets full flavor in two to four weeks at room temperature; taste at two weeks. Longer steeping does no harm to safety but the leaves eventually darken and the flavor flattens rather than deepens.
- Bottling"Small dry bottles" matters more than it sounds. Wash and dry them thoroughly, or run them through a hot dishwasher cycle, and strain through a coffee filter or double muslin so no leaf fragments remain. A fresh sprig dropped in for looks will keep shedding flavor and can cloud the vinegar.
- Yield and keepingRoughly a cup of loosely packed leaves flavors a pint. Strained and corked, it holds a year or more in a cool cupboard; the color fades before the flavor does.
- Using itBeyond the "sauce for meats" of the original, this is the vinegar for béarnaise, sauce ravigote, and a mustard vinaigrette. It is strong: start with half the vinegar a dressing recipe calls for and make up the rest with plain.
Tarragon vinegar was a common way of keeping a herb that dries badly, and herb vinegars appear in many nineteenth-century American household books: a summer cutting of tarragon became a bottle you could reach for in February. The plant's name descends through French estragon from a root generally traced to words for "little dragon," variously explained by the shape of the root or by an old reputation as a remedy for bites and stings. Such a vinegar served both as a condiment -- this recipe itself directs it to be used as a sauce for meats -- and as an ingredient in dressings and egg sauces.