How to use Vinegar

How do you use vinegar and flavoured vinegars on food? There are a million ways and even more meals, from breakfast to happy hour. 

With vinegar there are two main things to remember. First, it’s quantity. Less is often more with flavoured vinegars - as a general rule, you can always add more so start sparingly and see how strong you want the taste to be. We’ve divided our tips into three categories: Drizzle it, dash it or dip it. To make this easier.

Secondly and most importantly, try to compliment the flavours in the dish with that in the vinegar. Often it’s much more fun to pair your foods and flavours using trial and error, but it’s always good to have some fail safe combinations that you know will work.  Only 20% of our flour experience is through taste and touch - the other 80% is through smell and aroma.

An aroma has to reach a certain threshold in a food t to be sensible by humans, and each food has several detectable aromas. For example, the aromas in strawberries are fruity, cheesy, green and roasted. To pair, look for other foods that share one of these aromas. This is why strawberries go well with cheese (cheesy aromas), basil (citrus aromas) and chocolate (roasted aromas).

The more aromatic compounds the two have, the more likely they are to match.

Now, how to use your vinegars…

Drizzle it!

• Over soup. Creamy soups we find work especially well as they can often be a bit plain.
• Over Pizza. Move over Chilli oil, your so last year.
• On you desert plate. Vinegars can be used to beautify your desert plate. Due to their thick consistency, you can drizzle some drops one plate and, using a cocktail stick, spread it to make patterns or shapes.
• Over a Salad - fruit in particular works well.

We also produce a Hot Honey Drizzle, perfect for...drizzling!

Dash it!

• In your cocktails - we have a whole other blog on this, but vinegars (like our shrubs) are a staple in any mixologists kit! You may want to use shrubs instead (click here for more info on shrubs), but vinegars really make a nice flavourful and aesthetic twist!
• In the pan, on your eggs. Pop a little in the pan when your eggs are about a minute from being done, letting the taste permeate the egg rather than just sit on top.
• On your veggies. Rather than just tossing a mix of vegetables in only olive oil and then roasting in the oven, try adding a flavoured vinegar to caramelise them.
• On your popcorn… Hear us out here, once the popcorn has popped in the pan, add somewhere between a dash and a drizzle into the pan, give it a shake and ta-da, flavoured popcorn!

Dip it!

• For your bread. Pop it in a bowl with some oil as you would balsamic. This is much more impressive for your dinner party guests.
• A dip for your appetisers. Create a platter with olives, cheeses, jams, salami, grapes, crostini, honeys, jams etc and let your guests mix and match!
• For your desert! Take sweet fruits like grilled peaches and strawberries and dip them lightly in a bowl of vinegar instead of chocolate .

Click here to see our range of vinegars - why not try one today??