Homemade Mustard!

Mustard

I cannot live without mustard-an oddity in our house that loves ketchup (honestly, blech. I can't stand that stuff. Good only as a tomato base in my barbecue sauce, and I working on changing even that. I may like a homemade one, but that is a whole different post...) and ranch dressing.
I don't know why it took me so long to track down and try a mustard recipe, but for whatever reason it did. This mustard is a yellow mustard, and thus, uses yellow mustard seed. I will be working on a brown mustard for the future. I took Alton Brown's Best Ever Mustard recipe and changed it to work with the way I like to cook-without the microwave and tried to substitute local ingredients where I could. Mustard is easy to grow in the garden, and many seed companies have started carrying different varieties, something I hope to look at this summer. The greens of most plants can be used as well, making it multipurpose, and the seed stores well. You just grind it up to use as you need it, and the fresh flavor cannot be rivaled by the preground nastiness you get at the store. For those of us who don't have our own homegrown seed to use for mustard, it can be affordably gotten at places like Penzey's Spices, or for an Iowa company, Frontier Herbs. The other spices needed can be gotten there as well, and honestly, if you are doing any serious cooking with *real* flavor around your place, you need to have them on hand, anyway :)


As a note, this goes so quickly, it is crazy *not* to just make your own at home. It is also a good use for the juice leftover from pickles, or maybe some pickled pepper juice for a little more kick. Up the honey content for a honey mustard, as well.

!Mustard!

2/3 c yellow mustard seed
2 t honey
1 t sea salt
1/2 t turmeric
1/4 t paprika (look for a post this fall about homemade paprika!)
1/4 t garlic powder (same here)
1/2 c pickle juice-Alton calls for sweet. We don't do sweet here, though the recipe we do use has some sweetener in it. I think the regular works just fine, and like I mentioned before you can easily play around here with other pickled items
1/4 c water
1/2 c vinegar-cider works, I used red wine as it is what I had on hand. I will most likely experiment more here, as well, as different vinegars will give a different undertone. Yum.

Grind the mustard seed in a grinder until it is completely ground-nice fine powder, about a minute.


Mix it and all the other dry ingredients in a medium sized saucepan.



In a separate bowl mix all the liquids and honey. Whisk them together well, then add to the dry ingredients in the saucepan.



Bring to a boil over low heat, whisking together as it heats, then cook 30 seconds. Turn 'er off, put your mustard in a lidded jar, and stick in the fridge. It should continue to thicken as it cools. If it isn't as thick as you like, bring it back up to a boil for another minute or so, and let it cool again. Be sure to make notes, so you can just cook it that long next time, though mine looked fine after the initial cooking. Can be used as soon as it cools just like any yellow mustard, but the taste is just so much better, and better yet, we know EXACTLY what is in it. Should store well in the fridge for at least a month, but with that much vinegar and the spices in it, will most likely keep until the jar is empty and mustard beckons again...