Mustard and pickles serve as a wonderful complement to many dishes. Both of these foods are tart, but in different ways. They may be spicy, sweet, sour or bitter. Mustard is made by adding ground mustard seed to a liquid like white wine, vinegar or fruit juice and adding spices to taste.
Pickling increases the acidity of a food so that it does not spoil by letting it soak in brine. Many foods can pickled, such as mushrooms, peppers and pig's feet. Most people think of pickled cucumbers when they hear the word "pickle."
Gift Baskets
Gifts for mustard and pickle lovers may be difficult to find locally; however, traditional butcher shops and supermarkets will sell both mustard and pickles, and perhaps a few specialty varieties that can be used to create personalized gift baskets.
Many online businesses offer gift baskets for sale containing specialty pickles or mustard, usually accompanying meats, chutneys and jams. Also, many of these sites sell build-it yourself gift baskets for the pickiest eaters.
Make Your Own Mustard
Homemade gifts touch the heart as well as please the palette. Making specialty mustard at home is fast and easy. The key is to grind whole mustard seed rather than buy ground mustard seed. The flavor will be much richer if freshly ground seed is used. This powder should be added to enough white wine or vinegar to obtain a ketchup-like consistency, and then appropriately spiced or sweetened -- if making honey mustard, honey would be added here instead of spices. Hot sauce or dried peppers may be added to make spicy mustard.
Cleaned mason jars of all sizes can be used to store the mustard, and decorated labels attached for identification purposes add aesthetic enhancement.
Make Your Own Pickles
Homemade pickles are an excellent gift for pickle lovers. Making pickles at home is a much more involved and time-consuming process than making mustard. Cucumbers made ready for pickling must be washed and soaked in salt water for 12 hours prior to being drained and added to a solution of water, salt, vinegar and pickling spices. All of this is then boiled while mustard seed and dill is added to the mixture. The cucumbers are then added to the jars and heated in a boiling water bath. The jars should be sealed by the boiling water bath and stored after they are cooled (see References).
Pickles and Mustard Combinations
Fellow pickle and mustard lovers will be excited to receive a gift of different combinations of the two foods. Battered and deep-friend pickle slices go very well with a mustard-style dipping sauce (see References).
Mustard pickles will wow aficionados of both foods. Made by boiling cucumber chips in a vinegar-mustard sauce, they are finished the same way regular pickles are: processed in jars inside a boiling water bath (see References).
Tags: mustard seed, boiling water, boiling water bath, water bath, gift baskets, ground mustard
