This vinegar is an amazing product, it can transform the taste of dishes, change the properties of products, and even cause addiction. Pavel Zavarzin, chef and co-author of the online culinary guide FoodKasta, told us how and where to use basic vinegar – apple, wine, balsamic, and rice.
Apple cider vinegar
One of the most accessible and familiar. Most often, this vinegar is made from apple cider, fermented apple juice, or apple pomace.
But synthetic apple cider vinegar is also available for sale. Read the label carefully when buying! The strength of natural apple cider vinegar is 4-6%, while synthetic vinegar is usually 9%. In a bottle with a natural (unpasteurized) product, after some time after bottling, a natural sediment forms – harmless flakes of a brownish tint. This cannot happen in synthetic vinegar, it is a “lifeless” solution. Finally, natural apple cider vinegar is significantly more expensive than synthetic vinegar – 1.5 times or more.
A fairly popular way to lose weight is to sit on a vinegar diet. So, synthetic apple cider vinegar is not suitable for it and can even be harmful to health. It is better to use homemade, see the recipe here.
Using Apple Cider Vinegar
Apple cider vinegar is one of the mildest and sweetest. It works well as a natural preservative in recipes for pickled vegetables with a short shelf life (2-3 weeks) but is not suitable for longer preservation – too weak. Therefore, when preparing marinades, do not dilute it with water and use a vinegar of at least 5% strength. Apple cider vinegar is ideal for quick pickling of onions, asparagus, zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli, beets, carrots and dill. It can replace lemon juice in various soups or sauces, it activates the work of soda in baking.
Apple cider vinegar is popular in the US and is widely used to make BBQ sauces. To do this, mix the vinegar with ketchup, season with salt, freshly ground black pepper, and dry chili flakes, and serve with grilled meat, such as ribs. A good sauce can also be made from apple cider vinegar, tomato paste, mustard, pineapple chunks with sugar, salt, and freshly ground black pepper. This sauce is great for sandwiches and burgers with pulled pork and coleslaw.
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Pickled white onion for shashlik or sandwiches, for burgers or shawarma
Vinegar dampens the sharp onion taste, and powdered sugar compensates for the excess acidity. The apple note will make the onion taste more noble. The combination of sweet and sour tastes helps to increase appetite.
Mix apple cider vinegar with powdered sugar in a 2:1 ratio, with more vinegar.
Cut the white onion into half rings. Transfer to a bowl and add the marinade. Leave for 2-3 minutes. Use as a side dish for grilled meat or as an ingredient in salads.
Cabbage and carrot salad with vinegar dressing
The salad can be served as a separate dish or used to make shawarma.
200 g red cabbage
100 g Korean carrots
30 ml apple cider vinegar
Chop the cabbage so that the pieces are the same length as the carrots.
Mix cabbage with carrots and season with vinegar.
Wine vinegar
Wine vinegar is widely used in wine-producing countries (primarily in France). It is obtained by fermenting grape wines or juices. The large amount of esters they contain gives the vinegar a pleasant aroma and rich taste.
Wine vinegar comes in white and red varieties. Classic red wine vinegar is made from Cabernet, Merlot, and Malbec grapes.
Using Wine Vinegar
In cooking, red wine vinegar is used primarily to make sauces, marinades, and salad dressings. White vinegar is also used to make various salad dressings and is used for meat dishes. In addition, if you add a little sugar to white vinegar, it can replace white wine in almost any sauce recipe.
Many chefs use a simple formula for preparing salad dressings: 3 parts vegetable oil (usually olive oil) to 1 part vinegar. Finely chopped shallots, herbs, honey, and Dijon mustard are added to this base to taste.
Wine vinegar is best chosen when working with delicate and expensive products, for example, for marinating fatty fish, or preparing dressings and sauces that include blue cheeses and grapes. The most famous sauce for oysters is made on the basis of red wine vinegar with chopped shallots.
Many have heard about chimichurri sauce. It was invented in Argentina, and then the sauce made from spicy fresh herbs spread throughout South America. It is especially good for steaks and grilled beef. this contains red wine vinegar, lots and lots of chopped garlic and parsley, plus olive oil.
Smoked plum for duck leg
Caramel, when mixed with fish sauce and vinegar, gives the plums a smoky flavor and aroma, and the juice that is released during the cooking process becomes a luxurious sauce.
500 g large blue plums
100 g melted butter
50 g cane sugar
20 g fish sauce
50 ml red wine vinegar
Cut the plum in half, and remove the pits. Fry with melted butter in a well-heated frying pan for 1-2 minutes.
Add sugar and, stirring gently, caramelize the plums over high heat until the sugar melts completely.
Add fish sauce and vinegar. Stir and remove from heat.
Pickled eggplants
This is an ideal snack for vodka and an accompaniment to any hot meat or poultry dish. But it can also be the main dish.
1 kg small eggplants
25 g salt
50 g garlic
50 g chili pepper
30 g cilantro
100 g sugar
200 ml of water
250 ml vegetable oil, preferably unrefined sunflower oil
400 ml white wine vinegar
Pierce the eggplants in several places with a knife. Without cutting, boil in salted water until soft, about 10-15 minutes. Squeeze and cut into large pieces. Transfer to a jar or large bowl.
For the marinade, finely chop the garlic and coriander. Cut the chili pepper and remove the partitions and seeds. In a saucepan with a thick bottom, mix the sugar, water, vegetable oil, and vinegar. Bring to a boil. The sugar should melt completely.
Add garlic and chili pepper. Stir. Remove from heat and pour this marinade over the eggplants. Refrigerate for at least 6-8 hours. The longer the eggplants marinate, the tastier they will be.
Balsamic vinegar
The most famous balsamic vinegar is obtained from white grape varieties with a high sugar content (usually Trebbiano), which grow in the vicinity of the Italian city of Modena. After fermentation and evaporation, the vinegar is placed in wooden barrels, where it is aged from 12 months to 12 years. The older the balsamic vinegar, the more aromatic it is and, accordingly, the more expensive.
The Emilia-Romagna region has strict standards for the production of balsamic vinegar, which stipulate every detail of production, right down to the shape of the bottle. This vinegar is called Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena (DOP, or Protected Designation of Origin). It is expensive: 200 ml – from 100 euros and up.
Traditional Balsamic Sauce from Modena paired with Parmesan
Cheaper options (from 200 rubles to 250 ml) are most often made from wine vinegar with the addition of grape juice concentrate and dyes, which makes production cheaper and faster. Such vinegar, of course, cannot be compared with the original, but even among budget options, there are some good examples.
There are two criteria for choosing inexpensive balsamic vinegar. First: it is best to buy vinegar produced in Italy. Second: the fewer ingredients listed on the label after the wine vinegar and grape concentrate, the better. It is also worth paying attention to the thickness of the product – it should not be liquid, like water, and not be viscous and thick, like honey. And, of course, the taste. Even a budget option should have an aftertaste of ripe grapes and be balanced – sweet and sour. The darker the vinegar, the sweeter it is.
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Using Balsamic Vinegar
Expensive DOP vinegar is widely used as the finishing touch when serving risotto, a cheese plate (necessarily with parmesan), cream of seafood soup, or panna cotta. One of the simplest and most effective ways to use it is to drizzle strawberries with a mixture of balsamic vinegar and maple syrup.
A good-budget vinegar is quite suitable for salad dressings. It goes well with tomatoes, pasta, carrots and grilled bell peppers. A little of this vinegar is enough to discover new flavor possibilities in tomato sauce or soup, scrambled eggs or ice cream, arugula, and goat cheese salad, or oven-baked chicken breast. Vinegar is good in the company of fried meat, such as steaks. It is also used to make balsamic caramel, which can be part of a dessert or its decoration.
Olivier salad with molecular caviar from balsamic vinegar (photo by P. Zavarzin)
Marinade for lamb shashlik
Balsamic vinegar is good for marinating young lamb or mutton. The dish gets a new, chic flavor.
1 kg of lamb, preferably gigot (back leg)
200 g onion
70 g balsamic vinegar
100 g vegetable oil
30 g adjika
10 g salt
Cut the lamb into small pieces, and the onion into thin half rings. Transfer the prepared ingredients into a bowl and mix with your hands so that the onion juice mixes with the meat.
Add the vinegar, vegetable oil, and adjika. Mix the mixture vigorously with your hands. Add salt and mix again.
If the meat is young, you can marinate it for only 30-40 minutes. Otherwise, 1-2 hours. Then cook the shashlik according to your favorite recipe.
Balsamic Vinegar Caviar
This molecular caviar is ideal with oysters and is great for serving tartare and ceviche.
200 ml balsamic vinegar
20 g sugar
2 g agar-agar
200 ml of tasteless and odorless vegetable oil
Place the vegetable oil in the freezer 1 hour before cooking. It should cool down well, but not freeze. If the oil has frozen a little, let it stand at room temperature for 10 minutes.
Bring balsamic vinegar to a boil. Stir in sugar. Heat until the sugar is completely dissolved. Add agar-agar, stir and bring to a boil. Boil for 3-5 seconds, stirring vigorously. Remove from heat, cool slightly, but do not allow to thicken.
Pour vegetable oil into a tall glass. This is very important for subsequent caviar preparation! Using a syringe, drop by drop into the cooled oil. The drops will begin to turn into caviar. Use the entire prepared mixture. Carefully remove the caviar and place it on paper towels.
Rice vinegar
Rice white vinegar, popular in Asian countries, is the result of fermenting glutinous rice. It is much more delicate than wine or apple cider vinegar and contains salt and sugar.
Using Rice Vinegar
Rice vinegar is used to prepare rice for sushi and sashimi, as well as the Japanese cucumber salad sunomono. For the salad, mix rice vinegar, soy sauce, and sugar and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. If desired, you can add grated ginger, wakame seaweed, or sesame oil to the resulting mixture. And then season the cucumbers with it.
In Asia, rice vinegar is used as a marinade for fish or to marinate meat or seafood, for example, before deep-frying them.
Broken cucumbers (photo by T. Sokol)
Marinade sauce for chopped cucumbers
If desired, the smashed cucumbers can be served with thinly sliced fried or baked beef or shrimp, or sprinkled with fried hazelnuts or cashews. The marinade sauce itself, prepared on the basis of rice vinegar, is a universal sauce for almost any vegetable salad. It is so versatile that it can be served with sushi, sashimi, and rolls.
1 small red chili pepper
3-4 sprigs of cilantro, plus leaves for serving
3 cloves of garlic
100 ml soy sauce
70 ml semi-sweet white wine
50 ml sesame oil
30 ml rice vinegar
4-5 g of firm medium cucumbers
a pinch of light sesame seeds
Cut the chili pepper in half, and remove the partitions and seeds. Crush the garlic. Finely chop the pepper and cilantro.
Mix the prepared ingredients with soy sauce, wine, oil, and vinegar. Leave for at least 1 hour.
Cut off the ends of the cucumbers on both sides. Cover them with cling film. Cover the vegetables with the wide side of a heavy knife (blade away from you and slightly down), and hit with your hand so that the cucumbers crack and flatten. Remove the film. Cut into pieces convenient for eating.
Transfer the cucumbers to a bowl and pour the sauce over them. Stir. Serve sprinkled with sesame seeds and garnished with coriander leaves.
Dressing for a vegetable summer salad
For a salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet red onions, red chili peppers, and spicy greens to wow everyone, you need a perfect dressing. For this, you will need rice vinegar and a small handful of sunflower seeds.
50 ml aromatic sunflower oil
10 ml rice vinegar
5 ml fish sauce
Mix all the dressing ingredients.
Pour into a small jar with a tight-fitting lid and shake vigorously. Season the vegetable salad immediately. Sprinkle with seeds.
