Dijon Vu

This was a project that I did for the 2015 Summer's End A&S competition. I did not win but people did tell me that they liked the flavor. No documentation was required but I typed up the following and included it along with the documentation I did ten years ago.

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Dijon Vu

Purpose:

While the theme of this A&S competition is to do something that one learned in a class at Pennsic, I wished to do something that I re-discovered while others were at Pennsic. While guarding the home front, I went through my digital documents and uncovered some documentation for mustard that I wrote for the 2005 Ice Dragon Pentathalon. While re-formatting it for my blog, I decided to re-visit this condiment and see if I could mustard the strength to enter this competition as a seasoned SCAdian.

Documentation:

Please see the attached documentation, Medieval Mustard, for the history of mustard and for a variety of period sources. I wished to improve upon the mustard that I made ten years ago:

3 ounces White mustard seeds, whole

An equal volume of stout (home brewed, of course)

2 teaspoons, Honey

½ ounce, Ginger root

1 pinch, Kosher salt

1 grind, Black pepper

I soaked the mustard seeds in the stout but I had miscalculated the volume and added more beer than seed. This mixture I let soak for three days. Then the seeds, which had absorbed most of the beer, and ginger were ground using a mortar and pestle and returned to the remainder of the beer. The mixture was left to soak for another night. To the mixture I added the honey, a pinch of salt and a single grind of black pepper. The salt was not added for flavor, but to enhance the flavors of the rest of the ingredients.As the end product tasted of mustard floating in a puddle of beer, I heated the mustard in a small saucier over very low heat for a couple minutes to cook off some of the alcohol and to reduce the mustard to a firmer consistency.

If I recall correctly, the mustard had little to no heat and tasted more of beer than mustard. This time, I did a little research on mustard in order to get a more pungent mustard. The Romans combined ground mustard seeds with unfermented grape juice to make a paste that they called mustum ardens [burning must]. This turned into “mustard” by the time the English language developed.

The heat of mustard is determined by a few things, the first being the type of mustard seed: White being the mildest, then yellow, the brown and the hottest are the black seeds. On their own, mustard seeds have no heat; the compounds that cause the heat (myrosin and sinigrin) are separated from each other. It is only when water is added that enzymes within the seed are activated and break down the cellular walls that hold myrosin and sinigrin away from each other. Once these two compounds meet, they produce an oil that causes a pleasant flavor in small doses and can cause burning and blistering in large quantities. Mustard gas is made from the myrosin and sinigrin reaction.

The temperature of the water can affect this reaction. Hot water can deactivate the enzymes and break down some of the pungent compounds. The hotter the water, the milder the mustard. Soak time also affects the final heat level. The heat level will rise for the first 15 or 20 minutes and then taper off as the enzymes and mustard compounds are used up and the mustard oil dissipates. An acid can fix the heat level at a particular point. Vinegar, ver juice, pickle juice and wine are often added. Alcohol can slow the process down, but not stop it.

With all of this in mind, this mustard consists of the following:

3 ounces yellow mustard seeds, whole

3.5 ounces of cold water

4 tablespoons of red wine (home brewed, of course)

2 teaspoons, clover honey

1 clove of garlic, minced

2 pinches, kosher salt

4 grinds of black pepper (about 2 teaspoons)

I ground the mustard seeds in a mortar as fine as I could along with the kosher salt, which I added as an abrasive as well as for flavor. I used kosher salt because it does not contain any iodine or anti-clumping agents. It also has large crystals that allow it to act as a good abrasive. Once all of the seeds were ground, I added 3.5 ounces of water and mixed so that all of the water was absorbed by the powder. I added the minced garlic, and the ground pepper, and let the mixture sit for six minutes, stirring with a whisk. After the soak, I added the wine and mixed in the honey. I whisked the mustard for another five minutes and then transferred it to a container to sit.

I hope that my mustard offers a good balance of heat to flavor.

Bibliography: 

DeWitt, Dave. 1,001 Best Hot and Spicy Recipes. Agate Publishing, 2010.

Ledgard, Jared. A Laboratory History of Chemical Warfare Agents. Lulu.com, 2006.

Kiple, Kenneth F. The Cambridge World History Of Food. 2 (2000), Volume 2. Cambridge University Press, 2001

Man, Rosamond; Weir, Robin. The Mustard Book. Grub Street, 2010