Homemade Flavored Vinegars

the best gifts are homemade gifts and in my opinion the best homemade gifts are edible so why not make food gifts for your friends and family this year all you need are some regular vinegars some glass bottles preferably with corks and some great flavors [Music] so let's talk about the gear you're gonna need I'm gonna use these large mason jars to actually make my vinegar but then when you give it to somebody you want to put it into a pretty jar the thing that's really important is all these jars need to be very clean so sanitize them by boiling them in boiling water for about ten minutes or you can use a sanitize cycle on your dishwasher but you're gonna do that right before you're going to use them these jars this actually is a step that happens in about two weeks so we're gonna put these aside the first thing you're gonna need are some vinegars here I've got a selection of three different vinegars white distilled vinegar is really great because it allows the flavors and whatever you ads are really shine through plus it's really inexpensive so it's a great vinegar to use I also have a white wine vinegar that also lets flavors shine through is a little more elegant and a little bit different in color then of course why not try using red wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar that's gonna work better with stronger flavors that can match the flavor of the balsamic vinegar itself I'm gonna use white balsamic vinegar because I like to see the color that the flavors add to the vinegar so you choose your vinegar first off then you have to choose your flavors so here we have a selection of flavors today we're gonna make a hot chili vinegar we're gonna make a fake and pomegranate balsamic vinegar and I'm gonna make a lemon sage white wine vinegar so lots of great flavors here but again we have to make sure these are really really clean so wash your peppers wash the lemon before you peel it with herbs you're gonna take one extra step especially if you've grown these herbs yourself we're gonna wash them in a mixture of bleach and water and I know that sounds weird but it's only one teaspoon of bleach to 6 cups of water swirl the herbs around in there and then wash them well and dry them well the reason we do this is because that's going to kill any critters or bacteria or spores that might be on your herbs and then taint your vinegar so watch well bleach solution dry them well those are the flavors we're going to use today but there are lots of varieties that you could use you can use any kind of berry or perhaps just spices like cinnamon and star anise mustard seed anything that you can put into this jar you can really use to flavor the vinegar however don't use ground spices because they'll cloud that vinegar and make it unattractive the first step is to bring your vinegar to about a hundred and ninety degrees Fahrenheit that's just below the boiling point the reason we warned that vinegar is because it's gonna then be better able to extract the flavors from the different ingredients you're gonna add so just below the boiling point meanwhile let's put your flavors in the jars I'm gonna start making the lemon sage white wine vinegar so for that I've taken the peel of some lemon [Music] you can use a peeler to take it off and then trim any of the white off this goes straight into our Basin job now we're going to add that saves that has been cleaned but you want to bruise the herbs first so I'm just gonna what we call spank the herbs like this and really get that flavor out of those fresh leaves these go straight into the jar as well you're gonna use about three to five sprigs of whatever herb you are using to a pint of vinegar so we have that ready to go let's make our next flavor which is gonna be the big pomegranate white balsamic vinegar here we're gonna add some crushed pomegranate seeds these are just pomegranate seeds you've taken out of the pomegranate and then crush them gently with the back of a spoon we've also got some things that were going to pop in here as well we've cut these open to expose that big and give it the most flavor possible and finally come to our pepper vinegar here we're gonna take some peppers but we have to prepare them just a little bit first so I've got a cutting board I'm going to slice a hole or a line all the way down that pepper just like this that is going to allow the pepper to sink in the vinegar and also expose it so it's not that flavor can come out remember the heat of the pepper is actually in the seeds and the vein so allowing that manner to get in there is gonna bring you the most flavor that's a long hot pepper I've also got a Cuban el here that I'm gonna make a slice in just to let that go in as well and then these are little green habanero is extremely hot and spicy so you don't want your vinegar too spicy go careful with this one but again I'm gonna do the same thing slice it open just to expose any layers maybe two lines and this that'll let the vinegar get in there and get that spiciness now is the time to add the vinegars they're warm we're gonna use a funnel so that we don't make any mistakes and I'm gonna pour the white wine vinegar over the lemon and sage [Music] we're gonna pour white balsamic vinegar over our pigs in pomegranate [Music] and I'm gonna pour just plain white distilled vinegar over that chili pepper [Music] so now we're gonna cover these up with the lids now you'll see the peppers are floating right now they'll sink in a few days because of the holes in make of them look at the beautiful color already coming out of the pomegranate and baked into that white balsamic and this is our white wine vinegar with the lemon of sage it's super aromatic I can smell it already we're gonna cover these up and put them away in a cool dark place for about two weeks so during the course of two weeks you're gonna come back to the bottles when you remember and just tip them over to stir up all those flavors and get more flavor out into the vinegar but after two weeks time to taste what you've made so be careful taste the tiny bit because number this is vinegar all we want to know is has the flavor flavoured the vinegar that is beautiful let's check out the next one this is the fig and pomegranate white balsamic you're gonna make some very very happy friends with these vinegars and here be very careful when you taste the chili pepper vinegar because this could be really really spicy hmmm there's quite a little after kick on that one so let's set a couple of these aside and I'll show you the next thing that you need to do to make these gifts beautiful we're gonna take our bottles we've made pretty labels if you're like me you've had somebody else write the label for you because I have atrocious handwriting and we're gonna make these jars pretty so we have our pomegranate fig our hot chili pepper vinegar and our lemon sage so we're going to add some new flavoring ingredients these will continue to play really vinegars but they'll look pretty and fresh instead of old and greenish sose use a chopstick or a paintbrush tip like I'm using here so just push these herbs back down into that bottle I've got some fresh lemon peel that I used a channel knife to get off and we're gonna put that into the bottle as well and you can put as much of this as you want but remember it's going to continue to flavor the oil and just push it down so that's our lemon sage ready to go let's look at our pomegranate fig we're gonna put a few fresh pomegranate seeds in here remember they've been slightly crushed so that more flavor will come out [Music] and you may have to slice those figs super small to get them inside here but just enough to make it look pretty and to let people know what are the flavors and then with that chili pepper again we're gonna just put two pieces in here two chili peppers there's no need to really slice it in Oakland because we're not looking for too much more flavor but just enough to get it to sink here's our little habanero so now our jars are ready our vinegars taste great we just have to strain them and put them into these jars we'll start off with our lemon sage so I'm gonna strain this through a strainer and some cheesecloth just to just make sure I get all of the ingredients out now I'm gonna pour that through it funnel carefully into the bottle you can already see how pretty this is gonna be mixture now you have a cork or a rubber stopper for that vinegar and we're going to keep it upright if you do only have a metal cap just make sure you always keep that bottle upright in the vinegar doesn't come in contact with that metal cage one done - or go [Music] so there you have it three beautiful homemade gifts that you can give to people beautiful flavors of vinegar imagine all the ways you can use it perhaps over fish and chips a little bit of chili vinegar or in a salad the pomegranate fig or in marinades the lemon sage vinegar but whatever you do with them I know you're going to make people happy you

Channel: Blue Jean Chef

Views: 13,998

Keywords: homemade, vinegar, homemade gifts, cooking

Id: 6oK3oAsS9qs

Length: 11min 38sec (698 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 29 2018