Mustard is not everyone's cup of tea but this recipe would have been made according to the taste of each household and a cook in a large house, palace or castle would have had their own spice mix for the mustard.
This is a fun condiment to make and needs a bit of elbow grease!
Ingredients
4 tablespoons of whole mustard seeds
6 tablespoons of white wine vinegar
1.2 teaspoon of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of powder douce ( read on to find out about powder douce!)
Method
Put the mustard seed and 4 tablespoons of the vinegar into a bowl, cover and leave for 24 hours
After 24 hours put the seeds into a mortar and pestle.
Here is where you need the elbow grease!
Grind the seeds, hard for approx 10 mins. This will give a coarse grind, if you want a finely ground mustard then you have to keep going!
Add the other 2 tablespoons of vinegar to the seeds.
Douce
Now to the Powder Douce. This is basically a mix of spices. Most recipes in the medieval era will ask either for a sweet mix or a savoury mix and each cook would have his own recipe for these two mixes.
The Powder Douce we are using is this -
3 tablespoons ground ginger
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground gloves
1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
Mix all of these spices together and then put in a jar. It will keep for about 1 year.
You only need 1/2 teaspoon of Powder Douce for your mustard.
Add the Douce to the mustard, mix in well and then cover the mustard and place somewhere cool for the next couple of days ( a fridge is the best place if you have room)
After a couple of days test your mustard. If you would like it with a bit more spice then add more Douce a 1/2 teaspoon at a time.
