Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
in a boiling water bath or steam canner and pasteurization is
complete.
Making Herbal Vinegars
I'll confess that I have never purchased an herbal vinegar.
Anytime I have seen herbal vinegar, it is usually in some sort
of craft shop. The vinegar is in an ornate bottle with a sprig of
some herb and has a fancy label. It also has an obscenely
fancy price. The price seems crazy to me because I'm pretty
certain that the vinegar they used was $1/gallon commodity
vinegar and the sprig of herb cost about a penny, and the cost
is $12 for six ounces. No thanks!
Herbal vinegars can be quite nice, though, and making your
own is easy enough. You can make it using commodity
vinegar from the supermarket or your own hand-crafted
vinegar. I don't recommend using cider vinegars for herbs.
As you may know from an earlier book,
61
growing your own
herbs is easy. The hard part for beginners is choosing which
herbs to use (and how much). To help you get started, I
suggest the following single herbs: borage, thyme, rosemary,
dill, basil, tarragon, and oregano.
I recommend making your herbal vinegars from fresh herbs
when possible. Using fresh herbs, I recommend ½ ounce of
fresh herb per cup (eight ounces) of vinegar as a starting
proportion. Because the vinegar is a preservative, the herbs
won't rot. When using dried herbs, use two tablespoons of
dried herb per cup of vinegar.
