I find American mustard very frustrating. Even the stuff called “hot mustard” has barely any perceptible heat. As usual, I have turned to my culinary patron saint, Alton Brown, for the base recipe and adapted it to allow me to dial in the right level of sinus scorching!
DIRECTIONS
Mix the powders
In a small, microwave-proof bowl whisk together the dry mustard, brown sugar, salt, turmeric, paprika, and garlic powder. In a separate container, combine the pickle juice and cider vinegar and have standing by.
Place the mustard seed into a spice grinder and grind for a minimum of 1 minute, stopping to pulse occasionally. Once ground, immediately add the mustard to the bowl with the dry ingredients and add the water. Whisk to combine. Place the bowl into the microwave and heat on high for 1 minute.
How hot do you want your mustard?
The heat and bitterness peak during the first 5 to 15 minutes from adding the water to the ground mustard seed. A shorter delay before adding the acid will result in a mild, sweet mustard: waiting 10 minutes will result in a pungent, hot mustard similar to the commercial British mustards. Once you add the acid (vinegar and pickle juice), the heat and bitterness will be locked in at that level. You’ll just have to experiment with different timings to lock in your preferred level. For me, waiting 11 minutes before adding the acid gives a similar heat level to Coleman’s mustard (similar heat level to “Chinese mustard” for those on the right hand side of the Pond).
Add the acid
Remove from the microwave, add the acid ingredients after your preferred delay, and puree with a stick blender for 1 minute. Pour into a glass jar or container and allow to cool uncovered. Once cool, cover and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.
Other tweaks
Instead of using water, try substituting the same volume of flat beer. The beer you add will contribute its own distinctive note to the overall flavour profile.
Which mustard seed you use will also affect flavour and heat: the darker the mustard seed, the higher the pungency and heat.
Read more at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/best-mustard-ever-recipe.print.html?oc=linkback
For the base recipe, go here.
3 responses to “Mustard”
I can make my own Colmans type mustard? I think I love you, and we only just met! I occasionally buy Colmans as a treat, found out about it when we lived in England, I am out now but have some of their mustard powder. I have tried making it before with no success probably due to not using any vinegar or not putting in the acid at the right time, depending on the recipe. Going to make some today, I even have a little Colmans jar to put it in. Wandered over here from Casual Kitchen when he thanked you for the heads up on the Pabst beer reshuffle.
“Reshuffle” was supposed to be “kerfuffle”. Autocorrect.
Colemans is what I was trying to achieve, and this recipe hits that spot exactly! Plus you can tweak the ingredients to make it taste exactly how you want!
And thank you for the kind words 🙂