Homemade Dijon Mustard

Who could have ever guessed that it would be difficult to find mustard in the grocery stores?!? But here, in France, that's what happened this year. Drought, War, Covid, Supply-chain problems, you name it. But there's no mustard or cooking oils in the grocery stores (except for olive oil and sometimes sunflower oil).  So when I was thinking about what to make for little gifts this year, I thought of this after finding an interesting handful of recipes. So, here's my take on Dijon Mustard. I have to say it's Very tasty! 

I made a lot, for gifts. But this recipe, with amounts listed, will make about a cup. 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup mustard seeds (I used yellow, but you can find white, yellow, brown or black) 

1/2 cup white vinegar + 1/4 cup water - for soaking

3 Tablespoons white vinegar - separate

2 Tablespoons dry white wine

2 teaspoons salt

Directions:

Soak your mustard seeds in 1/2 cup vinegar and 1/4 cup cold water. Cover loosely and allow to sit for 24 to 48 hours. 

After soaking, strain your seeds, throw away the liquid. 

In a blender, blend your seeds with the 3 Tablespoons vinegar and white wine. Add salt and continue blending until very smooth. You may have to scrape down the blender sides to keep it in the reach of the blades. Mine got smooth and fine, but it also thickened nicely. Mine is scoopable, not squirtable. If you prefer your mustard thinner, just add a little bit of water at a time. Maybe a teaspoon at a time. 

Once your mustard is finished, allow it to rest in the fridge for a day before using. You will taste it right away, but the flavor will become richer the next day. It's a wonderful thing. So easy. I may never buy mustard again. Next, I'll make yellow mustard. But for now, I have Dijon for a year! 

By the way, it keeps a VERY long time! Years. There's no ingredient in it that spoils. But it's so good, you'll finish it in no time! 

I found my seeds in the bulk spice aisle of the Asian grocery. 

Combine seeds with vinegar and water and allow to soak for a day or two. Longer soaking makes it easier to get a nice smooth grind in the blender. I saw some recipes that didn't soak long, or not at all. I soaked mine for 24 hours. 

The seeds plump nicely and absorb much of the liquid.

Use a very fine strainer to strain out the soaking liquid. 

I had so much that I had to strain it in two batches. 

The seeds absorbed quite a bit. There's not a lot of liquid to throw away.

Not many ingredients; seeds, vinegar, wine and salt. 

The only other thing you might need is a little bit of water 

if you'd like a thinner mustard in the end. 

Adding my premeasured vinegar...

And the white wine.

I added the salt and hit the button!

After 30 seconds, blended a lot, but chunky, not smooth. 

You may like it that way, it's up to you!

A total of about 90 seconds and it's smooth! 

If you only make a single batch, it may come together much faster for you. 

It is thick, but it's smooth. I like it. I'm not going to add any water. 

It's really tasty and has a nice kick to it, like Dijon should. 

Flounder à la Meunière with Capers

Much simpler than it sounds

Flounder Fillets

milk to dip

flour to dip

one stick butter

1/3 cup capers

lime juice

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In a small pan, melt butter and add capers, cooking over medium heat. The butter will need to brown and the capers will pop open. I always start this first.

Dip fish fillets in milk, then flour, and pan fry in hot oil until nicely browned.

To serve, sprinkle fish with lime juice and spoon over a bit of the caper and butter sauce.

I usually serve this with broccoli, as I like the caper butter on the broccoli as well. :)

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I was unable to find flounder this day, so I chose a thin white fish.

This is not as thin as flounder, but I would not want to go any thicker than this. 

Get your coating ingredients ready. 

Sauce ingredients at the ready. 

A small pan with capers and butter, set on low heat. You don't want to burn the butter. I start the butter and capers before starting the fish. 

Dip fish into milk and then coat with flour.

Then coat with egg wash. 

Then into bread crumbs. 

Place in hot pan in a single layer.

Butter is melted and capers are heating. Butter is starting to bubble. Low heat, don't burn the butter. Keep an eye on it.

I used Panko crumbs here, it's what I had on hand. Standard bread crumbs are just fine.

Sorry this is out of focus, checking the capers, they are not popping yet, keep going...

Check them frequently. 

Butter is browning, can you see? 

I remove the fish as it is finished. 

Keep peeking at the capers. 

Ah, here we go. The capers are popping and browning. That is when they are finished!

The butter is nicely browned, the capers are popped and crispy. It smells so good!

I lightly sprinkle the fish fillets with lime juice. 

Spoon the caper sauce over the top. I like the sauce on the broccoli as well. A nice touch! 

A very tasty dinner that everyone loves! 

One last thing... Cooking fish can stink up the house for days. Put on a small pan with water and cinnamon. Simmer it slowly and the cinnamon will counteract the fish smell in the house. I start this as I finish the fish and let it simmer while we eat. 

Thai Noodles with Ground Chicken and Crispy Shallots

Let me warn you. This is NOT a weeknight recipe. It took about 2 hours! Next time, I’ll cut time out by pre-doing some things. I’ll give you those hints as I go through the recipe with you here.

I got this recipe from Bon Appetite Magazine. It was a request from a woman who’d eaten this at the Tong Thai Brasserie in New York. Bon Appetite got her this recipe. It sounded interesting so I wanted to make it for you.

Vegetable oil for frying

4 large shallots, cut into ¼ inch slices, and separated into rings
5 cloves garlic total, 3 sliced thinly
3 quarts chicken broth
1 pound chicken thighs cut into large cubes
1 Tablespoon Thai Fish Sauce
8 ounces Rice Noodles, broken in half if they are long
8 ounces fresh green beans, or Chinese Long Beans, cut into 1-inch pieces

Small Bowl #1
2 Tablespoons Asian Sesame Oil
2 cloves garlic, pressed

Small Bowl #2
¼ cup fresh lime juice (2 limes)
Tablespoon raw sugar (I used regular sugar)
¼ teaspoon cayenne powder
3 Tablespoons Thai Fish Sauce

Small Bowl #3
½ cup chopped fresh cilantro
½ cup chopped fresh green onion
2 Tablespoons chopped salted roasted peanuts (I did not use)
Tablespoon raw sugar (I did not use any additional sugar)

Hot Sauce Sriracha for addition at the table
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Deep fry sliced shallots in a couple inches of hot oil. If your oil is too hot when you put the shallots in, the pan will boil over. I’d rather you put them in and increase temperature to fry. This step took almost 20 minutes. The recipe said 8 minutes. Hmm. When they are browned and crispy, remove to paper toweling to drain. Now, fry garlic. This will take only a minute or two. There’s much less moisture in the sliced garlic. Remove to paper toweling again. You can mix with shallot, it won’t matter. Once this is done, you are done with the oil. You can move it away from the stove.

Mix together the two cloves of pressed garlic and the sesame oil.

Put your chicken broth into a large pot and bring to a boil. While you are awaiting the boil, process your chicken in the food processor to grind it up. It should look like pink hamburger when it’s done.

Once the chicken is ground and the broth is boiling, add the chicken to broth, breaking up so you have small pieces not big chunks of meat. When meat is cooked, remove from broth with a slotted spoon. Put it into a large bowl, large enough to hold the entire recipe, when finished. Stir in one Tablespoon of the fish sauce.

Bring broth back to the boil, cook noodles until tender. Remove from broth and add to bowl with chicken, mix.

Bring broth back to the boil and cook beans. When tender, remove and add to noodle and chicken. Mix in.

Mix in everything in Bowls #1 and #2.

After mixing well, transfer mixture to large shallow dish for table presentation.

Sprinkle everything from Bowl #3 onto the top before serving. I only used half of everything and brought the extra to the table so everyone could add more if they chose.

At the table, everyone can sprinkle on the Sriracha sauce as they’d like to taste. It really did add a Thai dimension to the dish.

The dish went over VERY well. We all loved it! Next time, I’d make this recipe on the weekend.

Other time saving ideas:
• Cut and separate shallots earlier. It took way too long before cooking.
• Shallots and garlic may be fried up to two hours before dinner. Just hold the fried veggies at room temperature until you need them.
• Chicken, noodles and beans could all be cooked earlier and saved in the fridge for dinner later. I’d just get the broth boiling, add all three and heat to temperature and remove all, together, from the hot broth to the mixing bowl, and go forward from that point.

P.S. Don’t throw away that broth! It’s delicious too! Add some noodles, or enjoy as it!

Fried shallots, finally done.

 Chicken all ground in the food processor. Chicken goes into boiling broth.  All done, scoop it out...And into a big bowl.

Add one tablespoon of the fish sauce and stir it in. Jonathan said this was so good, he could just eat it now. LOL! Bring broth back to boil. Add the rice noodles. Jonathan saying... hurry mom, my arm's getting hot!

Noodles are done, add them to the chicken in the bowl.Bring broth to boil and add beans.While the beans are cooking, prepare the other smaller bowls of ingredients. First set... Lime juice, sesame oil and garlic, cayenne and sugar and fish sauce. Shallots, garlic, green onions and cilantro. If you use the chopped peanuts, they would be in this step.OK, beans are done. Add them to the bowl. Mix well. Pour in ingredients, stuff labelled Bowls #1 and #2.

Mix well and then put in nice presentation bowl to go to the table. Now garnish with ingredients from Bowl #3.

Serve with Sriracha Sauce. I found mine at the regular grocery store in the ethnic foods aisle near the Thai and Chinese ingredients. Short of grabbing by handfuls, this is the only way I could lift it all from the bowl for serving. One large spoon and the noodle spoon, together. Sriracha Sauce. Nice and thick, not TOO spicy, nice flavor. It was almost the crowning touch on the recipe. Tabasco wouldn't do it. Too Vinegary.

Enjoy!