You know me: If it’s got Guinness stout in it, chances are, I’m gonna love it. This mustard is no exception.

It’s earthy, salty, and tangy—and totally my new favorite thing to spread on sandwiches and burgers. I think it would be great in BBQ marinades, too.

Thank to the good folks at Saveur magazine for the recipe. It’s definitely a keeper.

The process couldn’t be easier. It takes two or three days to make, but there’s about 15 minutes of active cooking time (if that).

Basically, you combine all the ingredients, then let them sit on the counter for one or two days to mingle. During that time, the mustard seeds soak up all that good stout and vinegar, which softens them up.

Then, you whizz the whole mess up in the food processor for about 3 minutes to thicken it, and…voila! Homemade Guinness mustard.

Your beer loving friends will think you’re a hero.

Warning: This recipe makes a lot of mustard

As in, three-and-a-half cups of it.

For comparison, a regular-size jar of Grey Poupon holds 8 oz.—or one cup—of mustard.

So, if you don’t think you’re going to go through it (or don’t plan on passing out your homemade concoction to your friends), I’d recommend cutting the recipe in half.

That said, it does last. The mustard will keep for about six months in the fridge. I packed mine into a couple pint-sized canning jars.

About mustard seeds

OK, there’s more to it than this, but here are the basics about mustard seeds.

There are three main types of mustard seeds: White (sinapis alba, often referred to as yellow), brown (brassica juncea), and black (brassica nigra).

Most grocery stores will carry the yellow type. Use the yellow or the brown to make this mustard. If you can’t find them in person, Penzey’s is a great source for spices.

Mustard in history and legend

• In Latin, the word mustard is “mustum ardems,” which means  “burning must.”
• The mustard plant is in the same family as wasabi, watercress, horseradish, and arugula—all of which get their burn from a group of chemicals known as isothiocyanates. The plant is really hearty, and can thrive almost anywhere.

• Mustard has been used medicinally since ancient times. Mustard plasters can increase breathing for a congested person and also relieve swelling by increasing blood flow to the surface of the skin.
• Young mustard greens add a sharp bite to salads and sandwiches.
• The Chinese considered mustard to be an aphrodisiac.
• German women sewed mustard seeds into the hems of their wedding gowns to help assure they’d keep the upper hand over their husbands.

Alrighty! Let’s get to it!

Spicy Guinness Mustard

Adapted from Saveur

1 1/2 cups Guinness Extra Stout
1 1/2 cups yellow mustard seeds (about 10 oz.)
1 cup red wine vinegar
1 tbsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground allspice
1/4 tsp. ground ginger

Makes about 3 1/2 cups of mustard

Make the mustard mixture

Crack open your Guinness. (Mmmm…)

Use the extra stout, the regular kind, or substitute your favorite stout.

Measure it out.

One thing to note: Check your measurement once the foamy head subsides a little bit to be sure you have an accurate amount.

(Liquid to solid proportions are important in this recipe, because they govern how thick/thin your mustard will be. Too much beer = runny mustard. Not enough beer = super thick.)

Pour it into a medium-sized, non-reactive bowl. (“Non-reactive” means that your bowl is made out of a material that won’t react with acid. Use ceramic, glass, enamel, or stainless steel. Avoid aluminum.)

(You know I didn’t let that leftover Guinness go to waste…)

Add your red wine vinegar to the bowl. I used Colavita brand, but any will do. As with most condiments and sauces, the better flavor your ingredients, the better flavor your end product.

Toss in the salt, pepper, and all the spices.

This recipe makes a nicely—but not overly—spiced mustard. Adjust the spices up or down (or add others) to suit your taste.

Whisk together gently (the stout will still be nice and bubbly and you don’t want a mess…) until the mixture is fairly uniform.

Toss in the mustard seeds.

And whisk to incorporate.

Let the mustard age for a few days

Cover with plastic wrap. Set the bowl on your counter and let it sit, undisturbed, for one or two days. (I let mine age for 2 days.) This is to let the seeds soften up so you can pulverize them.

Process the mustard

After a day or two, your mustard seeds should have soaked up a lot of the liquid. That’s just fine. (In fact, that’s what you want. It means that the seeds are softer now.)

Toss the contents of your bowl into your food processor. I’m guessing you could also do this, in batches, in a good (i.e. powerful) blender, though I haven’t tried it.

Process for about 3 minutes.

As the seeds break down, the mixture will get thicker. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, if need be.

Stop a few times to check the thickness. When you’re happy with how thick it is, stop.

I was aiming for a very thick mustard, like this:

Package and enjoy!

Spoon the mustard out into prepared (i.e. very clean) jars or a bowl. Keep the mustard in the fridge. It’ll be good for about six months. That is, if it lasts that long.

Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Easy Baked Tortilla Chips Dusted with Spicy Chipotle Salt This is like cheating, it's so easy. In fact, it...
2. Spicy Buttermilk Fried Calamari I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I was the...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Making butter at home is surprisingly easy to do. All you need is fresh heavy cream—and maybe a little salt, if you want salted butter. That’s it. (No, really: That’s it.)

No, you don’t need a butter churn

Unless, of course, you have one.

When I told one of my best friends that I made butter, he exclaimed something like, “Wait, you don’t have a butter churn…do you?”

(If you know me—and you know how much cooking equipment is socked away in our kitchen and basement—it’s always good to doublecheck these details.)

No, I don’t have a butter churn.

I have something better: An electric mixer.

As good as it would be for my arms, I’m not sure I could hack churning butter the old-fashioned way.

I should note that this isn’t a cheaper way of stocking up on butter. Chances are good that this amount of heavy cream will always cost more than a pound of butter.

But you don’t make butter this way because you want to save money. You do it because it’s really cool—and, of course, it gives you the opportunity to triumphantly bellow, “Holy %$&#, I just made butter!!”

Which everyone should do at least once in their life.

What is butter made of, anyway?

Butter is made of a few things: Butterfat, water, and milk proteins.

Butter made from fermented cream is known as cultured butter, which is more full flavored. You can make it by adding yogurt to the cream and aging it a little before you beat it to bits. (That’s next. Stay tuned.)

Start with high-quality heavy cream. If you can get it from a farm, that’s a big bonus. Basically, the better your cream tastes, the higher quality your butter will be.

How to make your own butter

Butter is basically cream that’s been beaten until it separates.

Most cooks have done this before by accident—by overbeating whipped cream.

You know what I mean: Your whipped cream is perfect one minute, then you blink twice and it starts to break down and get grainy.

When you make whipped cream, most of the time, you’re aiming for stiff peaks (when the whipped cream will stand up on the beater in straight little points).

When you make butter, you whip your cream to stiff peaks. And then you keep going.

For folks outside the U.S., heavy cream is cream that has 36 – 40% butterfat.

What can you do with homemade butter?

You mean, aside from gobble it up on fresh bread with reckless abandon? Use homemade butter in any way that you’d use regular butter. In baking and cooking, etc.

Since you’ve gone through the trouble of making it with good cream, I’d be more inclined to keep it pure, and use it on toast and pancakes—or anything where the butter flavor will really shine through.

You could also use it to make compound butter. Here are a few ideas:

• Fresh Herb Compound Butter
• Drunken Cranberry Orange Compound Butter
• Pecan Scotch Compound Butter
• Roasted Garlic Compound Butter
  

Here’s the whole process, from start to finish.

Homemade Butter

6 cups heavy cream
salt to taste

Yields about 1 lb of butter

Beat the cream until it separates

Grab your cream.

Put it in the bowl of your stand mixer—or in a large mixing bowl, if you’re using a handheld mixer.

If you have a splash guard for your mixer, you might want to use it. You’re beating on fairly high speed, which means your cream can spit a little.

Note: I stopped the mixer a bunch of times to take pictures of the different stages. You don’t have to do that. Just the mixer on and let it run. The whole process should take just under 10 minutes.

Turn the mixer on on medium-high speed.

As you beat the cream, it will begin to thicken.

And get thicker…

…and thicker…

Until eventually you have a bowl of traditional whipped cream.

(There’s your stiff peak.)

Keep beating! The whipped cream will start to get a little grainy looking.

And as you beat, it will lose all that lovely volume.

(That’s just fine. That means it’s starting to break down.)

It will also turn a pale yellow…

…and get really curdle-y and a little gross looking.

Keep beating. You’re almost there.

When the contents of your bowl starts to splatter a little, it’s a good sign that you’re done. This means that the buttermilk has separated out from the solids.

Here’s what the butter solids look like:

Strain the buttermilk

Set a mesh strainer over a bowl.

Pour the butter and buttermilk through the strainer.

Be sure to use a deep bowl. You don’t want the strainer sitting in the buttermilk, like this.

(I had to swap my bowls out.)

Knead the butter to squeeze out any excess liquid

Next, gather the butter into a ball and knead it.

You’re doing this to smoosh any remaining buttermilk out of it.

When all the liquid is out of the butter, you’ll wind up with a ball like this.

(This is where you hold your butter ball up triumphantly and bellow, “Holy &%@#, I just made butter!”)

Set it aside for a minute while you figure out what to do with the buttermilk. If you want to save it, cover it and keep it in the fridge. You can use it in bread, scones, muffins, etc.

(Keep in mind that this liquid isn’t the same thing as the cultured buttermilk that you buy in the store, which has been fermented.)

All told, I wound up with 18.85 ounces of butter, which is just over 1 pound.

Add salt, if you like

If you prefer salted to unsalted butter, knead in a little bit of kosher salt. I didn’t do this, but I’d use 1/2 tsp. – 1 tsp. Definitely start with less and taste as you go.

When you’re happy with how it tastes, pack it into a bowl or a few ramekins.

Refrigerate and use within 2 weeks

Wrap it tightly (butter absorbs odors) and keep it in the fridge. It should keep for about 2 weeks.

That is, of course, if it lasts that long.

Related posts:

1. Pecan Scotch Compound Butter You know how when you go to a fancy steakhouse...
2. Drunken Cranberry Orange Compound Butter This Drunken Cranberry Orange Butter is great on baked goods...
3. St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake So here's the thing. I liked this cake so much...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I know: When will I stop raving about compound butter? Never, probably. (But I’ll bet you could guess that.) The stuff is just too easy to make—and too darned good.

What is compound butter?

If you’ve never made it, compound butter is a great way to add a lot of flavor to a dish with very little effort. It’s generally used as a finishing ingredient or a garnish.

To make compound butter, just soften the butter up, then smoosh in a bunch of ingredients to give it a certain flavor.

For examples of other flavor-packed, buttery goodness, check out my Pecan Scotch Compound Butter and Fresh Herb Compound Butter.

Mmm, cranberries soaked in cognac

For this particular compound butter, you macerate (soak) chopped, dried cranberries in cognac. The cranberries plump up and absorb a little of the liquor. The remaining cognac gets perfumed with cranberry flavor.

Use sweetened dried cranberries for this recipe. (In the U.S., I’m talking about the ubiquitous Craisin.)

Uses for cranberry orange butter

This Drunken Cranberry Orange Butter is great on baked goods (English muffins, croissants, etc.). It’s also a great topping for pancakes and waffles. You can use it as a spread for chicken or turkey sandwiches—or stir it into wild rice before serving.

The sweetness of the dried cranberries is tempered by a generous drizzle of cognac and a spoonful of bright, fresh orange zest.

If you don’t have any cognac on hand, try a little brandy or even dark rum.

Drunken Cranberry Orange Compound Butter

8 Tbls. butter (that’s one stick in the U.S.)
1/4 cup dried sweetened cranberries
2 Tbls. cognac
1 Tbls. orange zest

Yields about 9 Tbls. butter

Macerate the dried cranberries in cognac

Take the butter out of the fridge and set it on the counter to soften. By the time your cranberries are ready, the butter should be soft enough to use.

Chop up the dried cranberries.

Toss them into a small bowl. Drizzle with cognac.

Give them a stir. Let them sit on the counter for about 30 minutes.

Mix up the compound butter

Zest your orange.

I used about a tablespoon, but by all means use more or less depending on your taste.

After about 30 minutes, you should notice that your cranberries have absorbed some of the cognac. Toss the orange zest into the bowl.

Put the butter into a medium-sized bowl. Mash it up with a fork to break it up.

Toss in the contents of your bowl (cranberries, cognac, orange zest).

With a fork, mash the contents of your bowl together.

It will take a minute or two to work the cranberries and zest into the butter—and for the cognac to disappear into the butter.

You’re aiming for a uniform mixture, like this:

Give the butter a taste. This is your chance to correct the seasoning, if you want to. (Add more orange zest, etc., to it if you think it needs it.)

Roll the compound butter up and refrigerate

Put a large piece of wax paper on the counter.

Scoop the butter mixture onto the center of the paper.

Smoosh it into a rough log shape.

Roll the butter up in wax paper.

Twist each end of the wax paper, just like a hard candy wrapper.

Pop the butter into the fridge for at least an hour, or until solid again.

Enjoy your compound butter!

After about an hour, your butter should have solidified.

When you unroll it to slice it, it’ll be generously flecked with orange rind and bits of cranberry.

Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Pecan Scotch Compound Butter You know how when you go to a fancy steakhouse...
2. Cranberry Oat Bars These bars are one part cookie, and one part granola...
3. Cranberry Almond Trail Mix Cookies The recipe is my version of a super-yummy cookie that...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

If they’re reading this, my close friends are probably laughing.

“Oh garlic, of course!!” they’ll say to each other. “After all, the Mouse has vampires on the brain lately.”

They would be right.

I probably shouldn’t admit this publicly, I know. But…I just read the Twilight books.

AND LOVED THEM. (I’m sorry, did I just yell?)

Sigh.

It’s true.

I’ve moved on to Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse books (the ones that HBO’s True Blood series is based on), on loan from my good friend over at Rippen Kitten.

Harris’s books are southern vampire detective novels, and they’re good, delicious fun. Pick one up. You’ll see.

So, suffice it to say that there are a fair amount of corny garlic jokes floating around our house these days.

My great love of garlic

Which brings us in a (very) roundabout way to my great love of garlic. I’ve always loved garlic—even before I started obsessively reading campy vampire fiction like a fifteen year old.

I mean, remember my trip to the garlic farm last year? Proof positive.

Now, I like garlic in pretty much all its forms, but roasted garlic has to be one of the best substances on the planet. And making it is one of those ineffable acts of culinary magic.

I mean, really: Take one of the strongest, stinkiest kitchen critters out there.

Drizzle it with olive oil, wrap it up tight, and toss it in the oven for less than an hour. And…voila! It’s mellow, creamy, nutty—and spreadable.

Magic, right? Pretty darn close, in my book.

You can toss it with pasta, spread it on bread, or (my favorite) make compound butter. That’s what I did with this batch. I’ve included instructions for how to do that at the end of this post.

When I roast garlic, I tend to use extra olive oil, so I wind up with garlic-infused oil. It’s deeply flavorful. I keep it in the fridge, and use it to fry potatoes and eggs. I also like to rub it on chicken before roasting.

Roasted garlic, three ways

So, this post will show you how to make:

1. Roasted garlic
2. Garlic-infused oil
3. Roasted garlic compound butter

The best kind of garlic for roasting

You can use any kind of garlic for roasted garlic. That said, purple stripe garlic is generally acknowledged as the best, sweetest kind of garlic for baking.

Roasted Garlic

Whole heads of garlic
Olive oil

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Off with their heads!

Grab a baking dish large enough to hold all your garlic comfortably. Set it aside.

Take one of the heads of garlic. Whack off maybe a half an inch of the top.

Basically, you want to expose the garlic enough so that it’s easy to get out once it’s roasted. Set the garlic in your baking dish.

Pull out all the tips from the top and toss them in, too.

One word of warning: I always include the tips, because hey, that’s more garlic to love. That said, these pieces are much smaller than the actual heads, so they can burn more easily. Just keep an eye on them when they’re in the oven.

Repeat with the rest of your heads of garlic. I made a ton this time. (Yep, you leave the skins on. Roast ‘em right in their wrappers.)

Drizzle the garlic with olive oil

Drizzle the garlic with olive oil. Pour it over the heads, so the oil seeps down between the cloves. If you want to wind up with garlic-infused oil, pour generously.

Toss the heads and pieces to coat in oil.

Cover your pan with aluminum foil. Crimp the edges tightly.

Into the oven!

Pop the pan into your preheated 350-degree oven. Roast for 30-45 minutes. Start checking the garlic after 25 minutes or so (remember: you don’t want those tips to burn).

Your roast garlic is done when it’s lightly browned, and soft throughout.

How do you know for sure? Poke it with a fork.

The garlic should be so soft that you can do this:

(Nom, nom, nom. Mmmm, pardon me for a moment.)

Remove each clove with a sharp paring knife, or squeeze the whole head until the cloves pop out. Up to you. Just remove as much of that golden, buttery goodness as you can. If any of the garlic tips got hard and crunchy, just toss them.

Put the garlic in a bowl and set it aside.

How to Make Roasted Garlic Compound Butter

Cut up a stick of butter (that’s 8 tablespoons) and set it in a bowl on the counter to soften up for about 20 minutes.

How much butter you use depends on how much roasted garlic you made, and how garlicky you want your butter. I used 2 sticks of butter for 5 heads of garlic, which makes a ridiculous (and strongly flavored) amount of compound butter.

(Trust me, I’ll use it.)

When the butter is soft, mash it up with a fork.

Grab your roasted garlic and toss it in the bowl with the butter.

Mash it together with a fork until you have a uniform paste. If it’s kind of soupy, that’s just fine. It’ll firm up in the fridge.

Rip off a piece of waxed paper or parchment paper. Scoop the butter on to it.

And roll it up.

Keep tucking it under to make it firm, just like making a burrito.

Roll it up into a log.

And twist the ends tight.

Set the butter in the fridge for a few hours, until it’s nice and firm. When it’s hard, it’s ready to use! Use it to make garlic bread, stir it into mashed potatoes, garnish a grilled steak with a nice, fat slice. It will keep for a few weeks in the fridge—if it lasts that long.

Strain the Garlic-Infused Oil

You’re not quite done yet. Can’t forget all that delicious, fragrant oil.

Grab your baking pan. It will be full of oil and littered with garlic skins. Set a strainer over a small bowl. Strain the oil.

Push the garlic skins down with a spoon to squeeze any extra oil out of them.

Keep your garlic-infused oil in the fridge for up to 2 weeks (check this out for food safety tips on keeping garlic in oil).

Like all oil, it will solidify when it’s cold. That’s just fine. Just scoop it out by the spoonful when you want to use it. It will liquify again when it hits the heat.

Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Roasted Blue Potato Wedges with Fresh Herbs This is a really simple recipe. It's a great, easy...
2. Garlic-Studded Sirloin Roast with Chili Pepper Crust Since prepping for Bon Appetit, I've been positively swimming in...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

So! Have a question in the kitchen? Can’t quite figure something out? Ask the mouse! I’ll answer as many questions as I can.

Since I’ve been making a lot of sauce-y stuff lately, I figured I’d start out with this question.

Question

What the heck is a “mother sauce”? Over the holidays, we had eggs benedict with homemade hollandaise. Someone mentioned that hollandaise was one of the Great Mother Sauces. What was he talking about?

Answer

When it comes to classic French cooking, there are five basic sauces—the so-called “mother” sauces—that provide the foundation for most sauces we know today.

French chef Antoine Careme designated the four mother sauces in his classic tome The Art of French Cooking in the 19th Century. Careme is known as the father of modern French cuisine. (He invented the chef’s toque. He cooked for royalty. He made Napoleon’s wedding cake.) Auguste Escoffier added tomato, hollandaise, and mayonnaise to the list later on.

Today, most lists generally include the five biggies: Bechamel, veloute, espagnole, hollandaise, and tomato.

Use them as a base for all sorts of delicious sauciness. Enrich them with cream, add some cheese or stock or wine, toss in veggies and herbs. You get the picture.

What Are the Five Mother Sauces?

1. Bechamel Sauce

This is a classic white sauce. It’s the stuff we commonly refer to as cream sauce. You can use it to make a bunch of different sauces, including killer cheese sauce (see my Ultimate Mac n’ Cheese).

To make it, cook butter and flour together, then whisk in some milk. Its thickness depends on how much milk you add. The more milk, the thinner the sauce. Here’s a great basic recipe for Bechamel from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

2. Veloute Sauce

Veloute is a white sauce that’s made just like a Bechamel, except it’s with chicken, veal, or fish stock instead of milk. Try Emeril’s recipe here.

Use veloute as the basis for a piquant white wine sauce, add in tarragon, shallots, and chervil for Venetian Sauce, or make Sauce Albufera by adding in a little meat glaze (reduced brown sauce).

3. Espagnole Sauce

This is a brown sauce. It’s a combination of a dark brown roux (butter and flour cooked together until nutty brown), tomato paste, browned veggies, herbs, and rich meat stock.

Espagnole sauce the basis for Bordelaise sauce (with red wine, shallot, bay leaf, and thyme), sauce Robert (with white wine and onion sauteed in butter), and Chasseur sauce, aka hunter’s sauce (with mushroom, shallot, white wine, and tomato).

Try your hand at Gourmet’s recipe.

4. Hollandaise Sauce

Hollandaise is a rich, buttery yellow sauce that’s probably best known for its starring role atop eggs benedict.

To make hollandaise, egg yolks and lemon juice are whisked together with small amounts of oil so that the fat emulsifies, then the whole thing is enriched with butter.

Tyler Florence has a good recipe here.

5. Tomato Sauce

Tomato is, well, tomato sauce. Use it on pizza, pasta, meat, or chicken. Dress it up or down with ground sausage, mushrooms, olives, or any manner of veggies.

Everyone I know has a favorite recipe. (Come to think of it, I haven’t posted ours yet. I’ll have to remedy that soon.) Here’s how Mario Batali makes a basic red sauce.

Cooking question? Ask the Mouse!

E-mail your question to jessie@thehungrymouse.com. I’ll answer a few here each week.

Related posts:

1. Pasta with Brown Butter & Chanterelles Chanterelle mushrooms have got such a fantastic flavor—and when you...
2. Sunday Pot Roast (a.k.a. Beast in a Pot) Pot roast is stick-to-your-ribs, winter home cooking at its coziest....

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.