Hello foodies!
Apologies again for my long absence, and thank you for being so patient with me. With June almost upon us, I'll be changing the format just a bit, but in return will be able to update much more regularly. We will be going back and forth with two main topics for now. Topic 1 will be what I like to call "New Kitchen Essentials". This will cover things, both tools and ingredients, that are integral parts of my cooking life, and why I think they should be part of yours. Of course, this will include uses and techniques as well as the overall explanations. Part 2 will be "Adventures in the Farmer's Market". This will be what's good and worth looking into at your farmer's market, how to use it, and how to select good examples of said awesome stuff. For any out of state readers, while this will be a MD farmer's market, a lot of what I cover here will translate to your local market as well, and I welcome any food or produce selection/procurement queries.
On that note, let's begin our first section of New Kitchen Essentials- Vinegars.
So whenever I've cooked over a friend's house, I've found, in perusing their cupboards, that while many of us have accepted the need for good oils (either for taste or health benefits), fresh spices (as opposed to the "steak blends", for example), and good produce (though for the love of all that is holy, STOP PUTTING YOUR TOMATOES IN THE FRIDGE! The cold destroys their texture. Keep them on your counter, and eat them when they're fresh. Trust me.), we still often buy incredibly shitty vinegars in cheap plastic bottles. In our collective defense, though, I've found that vinegar can, for the supermarket shopper, be incredibly hard to selectively buy. Even if we decide to grab something above the plastic bottle that looks good, it still tends to suck, even the "Italian reserve" balsamic vinegars or "12 year aged" blah blah blah...
Frankly, it's confusing as hell, and unless we see it in a recipe, we barely ever touch the bottle, right?
Well, I'm out to change that.
First off, I'm going to tell you what's good in vinegars, and where to buy them. After we get all that established, I'll tell you what to do with these different kinds of vinegars specifically. Just a note that I won't be covering all the vinegars on earth, just the most versatile/often seen kinds.
Why vinegars, you ask?
Well, recalling prior topics, we have 5 flavors to include on a successful dish- salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. The hardest and most often overlooked flavor to include is, in my opinion, sour. We salt, we char, we glaze with honey and sugar, but sour often gets left by the wayside... Which is the big reason a lot of dishes fall flat. It's not that they suck, they're just... missing something. I mean, imagine rockfish cooked without that spritz of lemon, or a nice salad that's just coated with just oil and salt. There's no bright zing to offset the deeper, fattier flavors, no... pop to really wake up your taste buds. Acids, and vinegars in particular, are one of the quickest and easiest ways to inject good flavor into your dishes and help a nice piece of meat or veggie (or fruit, as the case may be) be extraordinary.
So... what to use, where to get it, and how to use it?
1) Balsamic Vinegar- the undisputed number one vinegar for adding sweet and sour in near equal measure. Loved by salad eaters everywhere, and rightly so- good balsamic, properly bottled and/or aged, can be revelatory, on anything from a salad to roasted veggies to marinating a steak to drizzling on a nice piece of cheese (parmigiano-reggiano in particular). In addition to standard balsamic, we also have aged balsamic. This is vinegar that has been aged and slowly concentrated over the years as the liquid slowly evaporates. It can be awesome. Unfortunately, due to its popularity (in both regular and aged), we have seen an outright deluge of "barrel aged", "special reserve", and my personal favorite gross evasion-"True Italian Blend" (complete with laughing elderly Italian man or woman on the label) most of which, quite frankly, suck. Those that don't suck are horribly inconsistent. Going to a specialty food or kitchen store with nice brands can, by contrast, cost you an arm and a leg (I'm looking at you, Williams-Sonoma).
Purchasing and uses- FEAR NOT, DEAR READERS. There is hope. While I do advocate shelling out for a nice aged balsamic at the expensive specialty food store (more on that in a second), there is a very affordable, consistently good, and easily attainable standard balsamic. Whole food's 365 brand balsamic vinegar, retailing for $6.99. My vote, hands down. this is what you'd use for dressing salads (you can create a dressing known as a "balsamic vinaigrette"), marinating steak, or anything of that nature. For aged balsamic- the kind you'd use by the drop, not the spoonful- things can get a little hairier. For the most part, you get what you pay for, and the price can be pretty hefty. However, if you want a pretty darn good product for an incredible value, check out Olivier's 25 year aged balsamic. While $29.99 for 16 oz. sounds like a hefty price, consider the alternative for the "traditional good stuff" that goes for upwards of $125.00 for 2-3 ounces. This is what you use to pair with a bit of nice cheese or some ripe fruit. A little bit makes all the difference.
2) Rice wine vinegar- Okay, this one is a lot easier to find decent stock of. No vintages, no barrel aging, just different brands, and two main varieties- seasoned (infused with different aromatics to pair specifically with certain types of food) or unseasoned. Go with unseasoned (some brands load their seasoned versions with plenty o' salt and MSG).
Purchasing and uses- Whatever brand suits your wallet. I love using this for light cooking or raw applications where I want a light savory sour hit without worrying about an overly strong, acrid taste. Light, not sweet, and a good all-around vinegar.
3) Red Wine and White Wine Vinegar- I list these two together because I use them for pretty much the same use. Often times, they can be a little too strong to use as a standalone, and their very, VERY acrid taste is what gives vinegar a bad name for many people. That said, they still have some very good use, and good character. They just require... a little more forethought.
Purchasing and uses- While there are nicer brands and not so nice brands, the change in quality is so minute for our applications that I'll say aim straight in the middle (price-wise). For both vinegars, when making a marinade or a vinaigrette (or for you canners out there, when pickling), go for very up front flavors to act as a foil for what these vinegars can do.
4) Cider Vinegar- One of my very favorite vinegars, for two reasons. 1- It's one of my chief barbeque ingredients for my favorite thing to barbeque- pork. 2- There is no widely commercially available top shelf stuff, the normal stuff is dirt cheap, and if you do find very good cider vinegar, chances are it was homemade by someone who could give it plenty of TLC.
Purchasing and uses- as said, there's really no wide gamut of cider vinegars to find at the grocery store, and my usual barbeque ingredient is the Heinz plastic bottle cider vinegar. that said, I've also made some right tasty dressings out of Whole Foods' cider vin, and also from farm brewed stuff. In my mind, though, cider vinegar is most at home in marinades and mop sauces (stuff to baste dishes, particularly barbeque, with as they cook). So there.
5) Sherry Vinegar- The dark horse. The unknown. The vinegar you honestly had to really search to find, up until about a year or so ago. Without a doubt, the vinegar I use more than any other. This is the only other vinegar you will deal with ages and smaller bottles for more money. In layman's terms, think of this for when you want to pair fresh flavors, particularly fresh vegetable flavors, and a very bright, fruity-but-not-sweet palate. In other words, this is your go-to vinegar when you want to dress something raw, but don't want it to be sweet. Rice wine vin can sub for it in a pinch, but sherry vinegar is something absolutely unique. Once you start using it, you'll wonder how you lived without it.
Purchasing and uses- So as said, this is the hardest vinegar to find of this list, hands down. While the better vineyards and bottlers do have a fantastic product, for the standard everyday use, the Columela brand found at Giant isn't bad at all. A good product without half the hassle of procuring it otherwise... I'll take it. If you do want to see just how deep the rabbit hole goes with this, Amazon.com, or better yet Zingerman's, is your ticket. Bring your wallet, they can get a little pricey. As said, this is best when looking to pair fresh flavored ingredients (looking back, I use this in both the ginger scallion sauce and the red pepper coulis for this very reason), and at being incredibly unobtrusive while still giving a nice new dimension to your cooking.
So there we go. 5 fantastic vinegars, and hopefully a little direction on how to use them. I'll be posting recipes for some of these down the road to help illuminate some of the things they specialize in.
Until next time, "It's balsamic vinaigrette. Pass it on."
