Making mustard
Posted on ma 13 september 2021 in blog
This month I made mustard from mustard seeds grown in the Proeftuin. The recipe follows further down the page. But first a bit of botany.
Flowers of Sinapis alba (white mustard) being worked by a bee. Lower on the stem you can see the seed pods developing. As the plant grows, new flowers continually develop at the tip.
![flowering white mustard](static/mustard/20210912_110208.jpg)
The seeds ripe and ready for harvest. A white mustard seed pod has up to 6 seeds in it. From the volume of two large shopping bags, I harvested about 250g of seeds.
![seed pods from *Sinapis alba*](static/mustard/20210912_113530.jpg)
I cleaned the seeds. Initially the broken seed pods end up in the same container as the seeds. I set up a small fan and let the seeds and chaff fall through the air current. The seeds fall straight down, the chaff gets blown away by the current. After doing this a couple of times, the seeds were clean.
![small collection of cleaned seeds](static/mustard/20210911_172502.jpg)
To make mustard, I soaked 55g of seeds in 150g of vinegar.
![soaking the seeds in vinegar](static/mustard/20210912_171159.jpg)
The next day I put everything in a blender and added 1 tea spoon of turmeric, 1 tea spoon of sugar, and a touch of salt. The turmeric is for the yellow color. The sugar is to soften the sharpness of the mustard seeds; you can add a bit more if so desired.
![putting the ingredients in the blender](static/mustard/20210913_142233.jpg)
Blend until the consistency is to your liking. If it is too thick, add 1 or 2 tea spoons of water. Put in a mustard glass - this recipe produces ~200g of mustard. Leave in the fridge to let the taste develop for a few days. And... enjoy!
![a musterd glass full of home made mustard](static/mustard/20210911_135734.jpg)