[Sca-cooks] Grinding mustard seed

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

> So, having mentioned this in a closing, has anyone actually ground
> large quantities of mustard seed themselves?  I can ojnly describe what
> I have done as a huge pain in the @ss.


 Goodman of Paris says soak and
> motar them . . . dioable, but inconsistent paste, and very difficult for
> large quantities of over a couple tablespoons.  I have used a Corona
> grain mill at its closest setting, and the tiny seeds still run
> everywhere, and get simply broken rather than ground.  My hand crank
> coffee mill does not go small enough to keep seeds from falling through
> a lot.  Pepper grainder seems a possibility, but I have no siggestion of
> whether that approximates what would have been used in, say, 14th
> century France, though that is not a target time/place by any stretch.

I have hand ground mustard in quantity, at Pennsic for my mustard class--
if you are using a mortar and pestle of the normal modern size, it takes
quite a long time.

Now, I find that grinding mustard dry works best, though I have ground
soaked mustard seeds (for the white mustard in Platina). If you are doing
a large quantity of these, you might try one of the Japanese mortar and
pestles (for a small quantity, this is not a good idea as all the mustard
gets stuck in the ridges).

I think most of the other recipes call for grinding the mustard dry.

The best method I have found for large quantities is the simplest kind of
electric coffee-mill, which you must fill over the top of the blades.
(There's another kind that I can't describe, where the coffee/seeds go
down a chute and end up in separate chamber-- that doesn't work as well)

Le Menagier mentions mustard-mills in his compost recipe.

> All this because judges of my entry dropped a point and made comment
> due to lack of complexity of the entry, and that my research and
> documentation raised my score in that category.  I compared and
> contrasted 10 mustard sauces from different sources in my documentation,
> then prepared 4 of them for tasting.  One I made using hand ground seeds
> (the Menagier one that gives those directions) and the rest I used
> pre-ground mustard flour from the Farmer's Market, declaring it as a
> product likely enough available to cooks from spiceries.  My
> presentation lacked as all I did was slop them in some ramekins with
> spoons and provide some flatbreads for tasting . . . spartan to
> highlight the actual flavors.

Pre-ground mustard flour isn't really period, as the bolting process used
for mustard flour was invented in the late 17th/early 18th century.
Stone-ground mustard meal is a good approximation. However, I haven't
found pre-ground black mustard meal, so I grind a lot of my own. (I just
ordered 3 lbs of black mustard from my supplier).

-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa   jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
"The art of losing isn't hard to master;/so many things seem filled with
the intent/to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster/of lost door keys, the hour
badly spent." -- "One Art", Elizabeth Bishop