The vinegar solution that follows is the same as the pickling brine I use for pickled pork, pickled onions, pickled everything. As always, taste as you go along and find that sweet spot where all the prime flavors stand on equal ground; sweet, sour, acidic, salty, spicy. Use the recipe as a guide and follow/develop your palette. That’s what I’ve been doing, as this is the first time I’ve written down this recipe.
2 c. white vinegar
2 c. water
one half ‘o cup of sugar
one huge TB salt
2 toes crushed garlic
a few slices of onion & celery
generous pinches of the following:
chile flakes
coriander seeds
bay laurel
grated fresh horseradish
black peppercorns
clove
celery seeds
dill seeds
Method:
Simmer all of this together until you notice the bubbles becoming smaller, about 30 minutes. This is an important step to consider because this transformation of the sugar through reduction is going to give your mustard a certain sheen and viscosity that is desirable to you. At this point, remove the pot of brine from the fire and pour it through a strainer into a bowl of ground up dark mustard seeds, about one cup, which you cleverly grounded up earlier in an electric grinder generally used for coffee beans. The high temperature of the brine on the mustard seeds is going to contribute greatly to the overall flavor of your mustard, as will the aging you are going to put on this mustard: after you mix it well to get a smooth paste, keep it in a glass jar with lid, sit out at room temperature overnight and then leave it in your fridge to mature and mellow. After a week it is fit for your consumption and it only gets better the next week. Prepared and kept this way, I have never known mustard to turn bad. Only the mustard-maker.
Post-script: This recipe should be made in a higher quantity since the shelf life is so great so feel at ease to scale it up and be rich in Creole Mustard.
