Grainy Mustard

I am not a huge lover of mustard, except in salad dressings and in any scenario when it comes into contact with honey (on little sausages, on gammon, on chicken breasts… etc.) but my sister Emily loves it so much that the only souvenir she brought back from a recent holiday to Sweden was a tube of a certain kind of mustard that she had fallen in love with.

So for Christmas I decided to make her a few jars. I went with Jamie Oliver’s Beer and Honey Wholegrain Mustard and the recipe looks like this:

Jarful of black mustard seeds

Jarful yellow mustard seeds

Jar and a half of ale

1 tsp dried tarragon

1tsp dried dill

Honey

Salt

Red wine vinegar

Put the mustard seeds ale and herbs into a bowl and leave to soak overnight. The next day blend it all with the remaining ingredients until it looks like mustard.

Jamie suggests draining off some of the ale before blitzing but all of my ale had been absorbed. In fact the mustard seeds seemed thirsty for more- some of the black ones were still a little crunchy. As a result it was not immediately delicious. But after a few weeks in the jar, during which the black seeds could swell a little more, the flavour is much, much better. One other point to mention is that buying those little pots of mustard seeds from the supermarket is a pretty expensive way of making mustard, and plus they often don’t sell black seeds. If you live in an area with lots of ethnic cornershops you can often buy big packets for pennies. I went to Tooting. I bloody love Tooting.