Herbal Vinegar Infusions
~ Herbal Vinegar Infusions ~
I really love to infuse various plants, herbs (aromatic & medicinal), wild weeds, flowers, foraged finds, into vinegar.
Vinegar is a grassroots herbalists best friend. An excellent menstrum to extract the medicinal properties of homegrown plants, one which is easily made at home from common plants & food waste (the most obvious being apple).
Vinegar has been used for thousands of years by medicinal & grassroots herbalists, & those making their own homegrown healing remedies in their kitchen (that's me).
Vinegar is great at extracting the nutritional & medicinal properties of plants, with a long & stable shelf life, as well as being much simpler to make & dose than alcoholic preparations.
I love infusing vinegars for many uses, including for their flavor.
Favorites include:
~ Burdock or Dandelion root (contains inlulin, a natural prebiotic).
~ Cleavers (pictured on the right) or Chickweed I infuse for it's nutritional & medicinal properties.
~ Elderflowers & Rose Petals (on the left) for deliciousness
~ Mugwort, amazing taste
~ Rosemary (middle) or Nettle for a hair rinse
~ Fire Cider, a classic herbal remedy
With the nutritional/tasty vinegars I add these to salad dressings, salsas and sauces for a twist on flavor.
If you'd like some more vinegar inspiration, one of the most inspiring foragers I know ~ Pascal Baudar ~ has just released a book all about making your own wild vinegars. I have Pascals Wild Cuisine & Wild Brew book and I HIGHLY recommend both of them, which are utterly amazing, blow you away incredible...that's just me anyway...so whilst I don't yet own it, I can only imagine that his new book is just as amazing...
Oh and if you're keeping things grassroots (the way I do herbalism), just stuff a clean glass jar full of your favorite weed/herb/plant, and cover it in Raw Apple Cider Vinegar. Leave in a cool dark place for 1-4 weeks, depending what it is, then strain and bottle. Vinegars keep almost forever but you're best to use within a few years or I notice they discolor from the plants...softer plants (like the chickweed & cleavers) need straining out after a week. Roots (like Burdock) can stay in upto a month, and to be honest the elderflowers I even left in a year and they still looked fine, so you'll need to experiment! If in doubt, take it out...