SC - dream camp kitchens

[LrdRas@aol.com]

Sorry to take so long.  Grad school interfered



Platina: On Right Pleasure and Good Health
trans.  Mary Ella Milham


8.14  Red Mustard Sauce

Grind in mortar or mill, either separately or all together, mustard, raisins, dates, toasted
bits of bread, and a little cinnamon.  When it is ground, soak with verjuice or vinegar and a
bit of must, and pass through a sieve into serving dishes.  This heats less than the one above

(8.13 Prepared Mustard/ Sinapidum) and stimulates thirst but does not nourish badly.



1/2 c brown mustard seed                        1 c red wine vinegar
3 Medjool Dates                                      1/2 c red wine
1/2 c black raisins                                    1/2 c concord grape juice
1/4 c bread crumbs
1 t cinnamon

Grind mustard seed in blender.  Remove from blender.  Coarsely chop dates and raisins, throw
in blender.  Grind.  Glare at blender and shove sticky mess back down to the center.  Grind.
Swear in two languages and shove the even sticker mess back down.  Repeat previous steps until
the raisins and dates are a homogenous sticky mess.  Put mustard, cinnamon, and bread crumbs
into blender.  Attempt to combine.  Give up before burning out blender motor and add liquids.
Blend until the mixture becomes a delicate shade of rose pink.  Allow to sit overnight in a
sealed jar and sieve to remove bits.

Comments:  When I read the recipe, it reminded me of the mustard/fruit spreads I sometimes use
as a glaze, although of a more liquid consistency.  I chose my fruit ratios accordingly.  Next
time, I'll use even more dates & raisins to bring out their flavor more, and tilt the ratio of
vinegar to juice more towards the juice.  I find the flavor of the vinegar slightly strong.
(I might change my mind in a week though.)  The recipe calls for more vinegar than must, but I
added the red wine partly to add more flavor to the vinegar, because the commercial stuff
doesn't have as deep a flavor as the homemade I've had, and partly to simulate a new wine in
combination with the concord grape juice.  I started by slowly adding the red wine to the
vinegar to see if I could approximate the taste I was looking for, decided that drinking
straight vinegar is quite nasty, and just went with 1/2 c.  The ratio of solid to liquid is
partially based on my analysis of my collection of modern mustard recipes which typically
range from 1:1 to 1:2 solid to liquid.  I treated the bread crumbs as a binder, meaning that
I'd need less of them.  The batch almost filled a 12 oz Prego jar.  Next time I'll use a spice
grinder to get a finer consistency to the mustard and real cinnamon.   It's a hot and sweet
mustard, and it tastes simply grand on pork roast.



- -Magdalena
(I'll post my other redactions over the next couple of days)