D.I.Y. Delicious: Recipes and Ideas for Simple Food From Scratch (5 page)

NOTE
:
To clean fresh squid, lay them all out on a cutting board near the sink. Position a bowl in the sink below the cutting board and have a colander ready in the sink. For each squid, pull the head free of the body and cut off the tentacles just above the eyes. Put the tentacles in the colander and pull out the remaining portion of the head with the eyes and guts that come with it. Discard them into the bowl with the ink sac. Using the dull edge of a knife, scrape the squid body so that the opaque, white viscera inside falls into the bowl. Do this several times to get out as much as possible. At the same time, scrape off the mottled skin so the squid is clean white. Turn the squid over and do the other side. Reach inside the body and pull the bony quill out, making sure to get it all
.

Place the cleaned squid in the colander with the tentacles and rinse thoroughly, letting the water run through the bodies to remove any remaining sliminess. Drain and cut the squid bodies into rings about ½ inch thick
.

√ NO-WASTE TIP
:
If you have a dog or cat, reserve the fish heads and trimmings after you strain your broth. Boil in fresh water until the bones are completely soft. Puree and add to your pet’s food for a special, healthful treat
.

To make vinegar, you need four things: A vinegar mother (a mass of acetic acid bacteria); a glass, ceramic, or wooden crock of at least one-gallon capacity; two or more bottles of good red wine; and time—anywhere from three weeks to four months, depending on your vinegar mother. It’s really quite simple and requires little actual effort. The quality of vinegar you can make at home rivals expensive specialty store vinegars. Most commercial vinegars are manipulated to hasten the conversion, and diluted. There is no substitute for time, though. Once you’ve tried your own vinegar, you will never want to use supermarket vinegar again
.

These instructions and the mother I use are from Ken Cribari, of the
original Cribari wine family
. Depending on where you obtain your mother, your instructions may be different and require different timing. Ask the person or business where you source your mother and experiment, tasting your vinegar often.
See Sources
for supply information
.

I use an Italian-made glass demijohn set in a straw-lined basket. These are much less pricey than the more common wooden barrels. I like them better because they allow easy access to the vinegar and don’t have a spigot that can become clogged with mother over time. The straw-lined basket allows air to circulate, which is important. You can accomplish the same thing by setting a plain ceramic or glass vessel on top of a milk crate or a few bricks. A wide-mouthed crock is essential because the more surface area you have, the faster the conversion
.

TIME REQUIRED:
about 10 minutes active; 2 to 4 months passive

YIELD:
varies, depending on evaporation

Two 750-milliliter bottles red wine (see
Tip
)

1½ to 2 cups vinegar mother

Using hot, soapy water, wash the crock (if it’s wood, follow curing instructions) and a bowl large enough to hold the wine. Rinse well. Pour the wine into the bowl to allow the sulfites to dissipate. Let sit for 20 minutes.

Transfer the wine to the crock and add the mother and half of a 750-milliliter bottle of cool water. Swirl to aerate. Cover the crock with a towel or paper towel fastened with a rubber band. The vinegar needs to breathe, but you want to keep bugs out. Cheesecloth isn’t the best because tiny fruit flies can get through it.

Store in a cool, dark place. The cooler it is, the longer the conversion takes. I was told my mother must not be stored anywhere hotter than 85 degrees F. But all mothers are different. Ask the person who gave you your mother.

Swirl once a month, tasting every 2 weeks. After the wine has turned to a vinegar you like (in 2 to 4 months), you can add more wine and water to fill the crock and let it continue to convert for another 2 to 4 months, or decant it, depending on the size of your crock. You can even add leftover wine now and again a little at a time, but this will slow things down.

When you want to extract vinegar, you can decant half the vinegar in the crock, leaving the mother behind, and replace it with an equal amount of wine diluted with water in the proportion above (1 part water to 4 parts wine). Or, you can empty your crock and start from scratch, removing the mother and giving some to other happy vinegar makers, while reserving some for your next batch. It will take much longer to produce a batch of vinegar starting from scratch each time. However, you will eventually have to clean out the crock and start over, as the mother will continue to grow and take over the crock. As this happens, parts of the mother will sink to the bottom and die. You can tell because the mother will look old and leathery and dark red. Take the dead mother out and compost it. The new baby will float in the vinegar. You don’t need a lot of mother, so be sure to give some away when you decant.

√ TIP
: For choosing wine to make vinegar, the better the wine, the better the vinegar. Choose a good-tasting wine that you would drink yourself. You don’t have to spend a lot, but you should never make vinegar with wine you wouldn’t enjoy drinking. Don’t add a wine if it is “corked” and don’t add fortified wine such as sherry or Madeira to the vinegar crock.

The Cribaris have been a respected wine-producing family since before Prohibition. Though they sold the main label many years ago, sacramental wine is still produced in California’s Central Valley under the Cribari name. The Cribaris and my brother-in-law’s family became close friends nearly fifty years ago, when both families lived in Lodi, California. One time, after visiting his friend Ed Cribari, my brother-in-law brought home a bottle of the most incredible homemade red wine vinegar I’d ever tasted. I never forgot it.

I’d tasted vinegar like the Cribari’s once or twice, at specialty stores or food shows where good vinegar was being sampled. Vinegar of that quality is so expensive I never would have purchased a bottle. This homemade vinegar was so good, I had to learn how to make my own. So I arranged a trip to Ed and his wife Vickie’s house to meet Ed’s father, Ken, and to get my own vinegar mother, and the instructions to make vinegar.

Ken Cribari carries on the family’s long-standing vinegar-making tradition from his home in Las Vegas, nurturing the vinegar mother his grandfather made over one hundred years ago. Ken makes his vinegar as a hobby, giving it away to family and friends. Each recipient receives a page of written instructions, and a little bit of mother just in case they would like to make their own vinegar.

The mother originated with Beniamino Cribari, who came over from Calabria, Italy, as a young man. He bought a small vineyard in Paradise Valley, California, and began pressing, fermenting, and selling wine locally. It was about that time that he started making vinegar.

Beniamino developed the mother himself from scratch. He made his vinegar in a ten-gallon wooden barrel and gave it to friends, much like Ken does today. When Beniamino died, Ken’s uncle Tony, the youngest of Beniamino’s four boys, took over the vinegar cask, which was then passed onto Ken, who carries the tradition on today, along with his son Ed. I’m proud to be part of the Cribari vinegar tradition, even though I’m not part of the family.

The combination of tart plums and fragrant lemon verbena is just so right. Easy to grow, lemon verbena is a perennial shrub with pointed, pale green leaves. It is sometimes available in high-end grocery stores. If you can’t find it, it’s okay to leave it out of the recipe, or experiment with other aromatic herbs like lavender. If you do grow it, and have a good crop, another great use is to pair it with mint and muddle it with sugar for cocktails or lemonade. This jam will taste different depending on the type of plum you use, but I’ve tried it with many and it’s always good. My favorite summer breakfast is homemade
Yogurt
with fresh melon and a spoonful of this jam stirred in. You may want to top it with a little
Granola Your Way
, but it’s great on its own. This is also a wonderful jam to use for
Aunt Mil’s Jam-Filled Sugar Cookies
.

TIME REQUIRED:
about 45 minutes active; about 1 hour passive

YIELD:
about 32 ounces

3 pounds ripe plums (14 to 18 medium)

2 cups sugar

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh lemon verbena

EQUIPMENT NEEDED

Eight 4-ounce jars or four 8-ounce jars with rings and lids

A set of canning tongs (see
Tip
)

A large stockpot with a tea towel or water-bath canner with a rack

Tea sack or cheesecloth

Put a small plate or saucer in the freezer to chill. You will use this to test the jam for the proper consistency.

Cut the plums into quarters and then chop them into pieces of roughly ½ inch. Put them in a medium, heavy saucepan. Add the sugar and set aside while you prepare the jars and lids.

Put the jars and canning tongs in a large stockpot. Add water to cover. Slowly bring the water to a boil while you cook the jam. Once it boils, turn off the heat and let the jars sit in the hot water until you are ready to fill them. This step is
necessary for sterilizing the jars. Do not touch the jars with your hands once you have sterilized them, but use sterilized tongs.

Put the lids in a small bowl and pour boiling water over them. Let them sit until you are ready to use them.

Put the saucepan with the plums and sugar on the stove. Bring the plums to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves and the plums begin to release their juices. Lower the heat to a very slow simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture begins to thicken, about 20 minutes. Put the lemon verbena in a tea sack or in a square of cheesecloth tied into a bundle and add it to the plums. Continue to cook until the jam becomes darker in color and begins to thicken noticeably, 20 to 25 minutes more. To test for the proper thickness (gel point), drop a small spoonful of jam onto the chilled plate. Check it after 30 seconds; it should move slightly when you tilt the plate, but not run. If it runs, you need to cook the jam longer. If it doesn’t budge, your jam might be over-firm. This won’t hurt the jam, but as it ages, it becomes drier, and you may need to heat it before using.

With the tongs, remove the hot jars from the water bath, saving the water for processing, and place them, right-side up, on a tea towel. Ladle the hot jam into the hot jars, discarding the lemon verbena. Leave ¼ inch of headspace. If you see air pockets on the sides of the jars, dip a knife in the boiling water to sterilize and run it along the insides of the jars to eliminate.

Carefully wipe the rims of the jars with a clean damp cloth or paper towel. Place the lids on top and fasten the rings. Now you must process the jam. If you’re using a canner, simply bring the water you used to sterilize the jars to a boil. Place the jars in the rack that comes with the canner and lower them into the boiling water. Process for 5 minutes. If you don’t own a canner, use the large stockpot you used to sterilize the jars. Place a folded tea towel on the bottom of the pot to cover it and bring the water back to a boil. Using tongs, carefully place the jars on top of the tea towel, right-side up so none of the jars touch the bottom of the pot. Process for 5 minutes. Depending on the size of your jars and stockpot, you may have to process in batches.

Remove the jars from the boiling water bath and place them on a clean towel to cool on the counter. After several hours, push down gently on the tops of the lids. The lids shouldn’t move, bounce, or make a popping sound. If they do, they aren’t sealed adequately to prevent spoilage. Refrigerate any jars that failed to seal and consume them first. Properly sealed jars will keep at room temperature for up to 1 year as long as there is no mold or obvious signs of spoilage. You can remove the rings after the jars are sealed and reuse them. Never reuse the lids.

√ TIP
: Though you can make do without a proper canning pot, I do recommend purchasing the special canning tongs. They have a wide, nonstick surface that makes it easy to fish the jars out of the water bath safely.

These were always my favorite cookies growing up, and they still are. My Aunt Mil fills them with her crabapple jam from the trees in her yard. The cookies are soft, a little chewy, and very buttery. Another thing that sets them apart is their wonderful buttermilk tang. I tend to save my Cultured Butter for table use, since it’s special, but you could certainly use it here (unsalted). I definitely recommend using the buttermilk from your Cultured Butter in these cookies, if you can time it properly. This is the cookie dough I always use for cutout, decorated cookies during holidays but they do just as well when served with tea or coffee anytime
.

TIME REQUIRED:
about 1½ hours active; 8 hours passive (excluding butter and jam preparation)

YIELD:
about 1 dozen

4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1½ cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon kosher salt

1½ cups cold unsalted butter, cut into ¼-inch cubes

½ cup buttermilk, from
Cultured Butter
or store-bought

2 large eggs, slightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ to
cup
Plum-Verbena Jam
or jam of your choice