This post is about a simple way of making your own pickled mustard seeds and experimental exploration of the lack of hotness.
Introduction
Ground mustard seed to me is an essential ‘hot’ ingredient of mayonnaise. I was quite surprised by the mellow and tasty flavour when seeds are pickled in vinegar. Lack of cracking or grinding of the whole seeds and release of enzymes that in turn release hot mustard oil is an attempted explanation for this difference. Another source suggests that the seed variety, temperature and acidity controls ‘heat’.
Anyway, the cold & acid pickled seeds of both the yellow and brown (hottest) seeds are not at all hot, just a very tasty additive to food and the texture of the swollen seeds is also a delight. “Maybe I should put all this to the test by grinding both seeds to see if I can find the heat in either of them.” Mustard contains antibacterial agents so that it is safe to store for a long time without decay. Refrigeration is not necessary, but it does help to keep the flavour.
I choose to make the pickle with a mixture of brown and yellow/white seeds, just because they look good together and I can not detect any appreciable difference between their flavours.
Recipe
Put equal amounts of yellow and brown mustard seeds in a 500ml twist cap jar preferably with a plastic lid. Leave approximately 1/3 rd of the jar capacity for swelling expansion of the seeds. Cover the seeds with white vinegar and store in the refrigerator with the lid on. Top up with more vinegar if the upper seeds swell above the liquid level. Flavour is best after about a week of picking and they keep forever. They are great in stews, stir-fry vegetables salads and coleslaw.
More mustard mystery
I was not very satisfied with the above explanations of why mustard sometimes are just tasty and sometimes hot. A summary of these explanations by others are:
hot factors; brown mustard seeds, grinding, cold mixing with water without acidity and conversely
cool factors; white or yellow mustard seed, unground, mixing with vinegar (acidic)
“I had just finished my lunch coleslaw and was chewing on a couple of mustard seed and could detect the ‘hot’ flavour slowly developing. Was this flavour developing because my saliva (carbonate buffer) was neutralising the acidity of the vinegar. Alternatively, was it the grinding action of my teeth releasing the hot flavour? I could feel an experiment coming on.”
I did my own little experiment with my yellow and brown mustard seeds and commercial ground dry mustard powder mixed cold with either water or white vinegar.
When I ground my seeds in the coffee mill. I immediately noticed that the powder was much coarser than the commercial powder.
After mixing with vinegar or water I tasted the mixes after about an hour and then again after about 18 h. It was difficult to be objective about the relative ‘heat’ of each mix, particularly after tasting the hottest mixes. However, I was certain that the commercial mustard mixes with water or vinegar were equally very hot. By comparison, all my home ground mustards were only a little bit hotter than my pickled whole mustard seeds. I ground a little bit of the home ground yellow mustard and vinegar in a mortar and pestle to make the particles smaller and I think it was possibly a little bit hotter.
Conclusion
On the basis of this limited experiment, I concluded the most important ‘hot’ factor was the fineness of grinding. There was no appreciable difference with respect to brown/yellow, water/vinegar.
So for me, I will continue to use brown and yellow whole mustard seeds for flavour and looks and commercially ground mustard for heat. Luckily, warehouses such ad Hundustan Imports sell all three in a range of bulk packet quantities at a bargain price (Typically 500g for a similar price that you would pay for a tiny quantity in a supermarket) and they will last for years without deterioration (thanks to those little antibacterial chemicals within).
Tim
gge
