Hot Stuff Mustard Horseradish and Peppers

Mustard can be fun to play with. You can easily give it an international flair just by changing one or two ingredients. To turn mustard French, use red wine vinegar or wine instead of plain vinegar. The true French Dijon mustard uses champagne! Make Chinese mustard with flat beer. A dash (1/8 teaspoon) of powdered cloves, dill or both enriches mustard's flavor. For even more variety, add one teaspoon of an herbal spice blend such as the Herbal "Salt" described in Chapter 128. The addition of whole mustard seeds (1 tablespoon) will make mustard slightly crunchy, and black mustard seeds add color. Once made, mustard lasts for months, although its flavor does change as it ages. In fact, this is one condiment you may want to make at the last minute—mustard connoisseurs say that mustards are best when they are not more than a few weeks old.

English Herb Mustard

2 tablespoons ground mustard

2 tablespoons finely ground flour

½ teaspoon each ground turmeric, ground ginger and grated horseradish (this is quite hot, so it's optional)

½ cup apple cider vinegar

¼ cup warm water

1 tablespoon honey

Fresh lemon slice

Mix the mustard, flour and spices together. In a separate bowl, mix the vinegar, water and honey together. Combine dry and wet ingredients in a pan. Bring to a boil, turn down heat and simmer for 2 minutes. While the mixture is still warm, pack it into clean jars, pushing out air spaces, and refrigerate. Keep mustard fresh by placing a slice of fresh lemon inside the jar, on top of the mustard. Replace the lemon with a fresh slice every few days. The consistency may be thinned with extra water or thickened with more flour, but watch out: Water makes mustard hotter. For a very hot mustard, switch the amounts of vinegar and water: use ½ cup water and ¼ cup vinegar. If you prefer a mellow version instead, use oil or mayonnaise instead of water.

Mustard can be combined with horseradish to make a dressing for your salad or a sauce for vegetables (see the Dresden Sauce recipe below). Horseradish can also be put in potato salad and cocktail sauces. You should know that this plant turns bitter with age—always buy firm, young roots that have not begun to sprout or turn green, and try to use them fresh. The trick is to grate the fresh root directly into lemon or vinegar so that it gets as little exposure to air as possible. Be careful, though—the fumes can make your eyes burn.

If all this sounds like too much work, you can buy the root already dried as wasabi powder. This is the amazingly hot paste served with some Japanese dishes. (The bright green color is from a dye, but you can get it without dye at a natural food store.) Reconstitute the powder a half hour before serving by soaking 1 tablespoon of powder in 2 tablespoons of water. Keep reconstituted wasabi in the refrigerator.

Dresden Sauce

1 cup sour cream or yogurt

½ teaspoon English Herb Mustard

¼ teaspoon soy sauce

Combine ingredients and serve with main course.

Black pepper has the distinction of being an important spice all over the world. Once literally worth its weight in gold, the humble peppercorn has played an important role over the ages. The trade routes from India to ancient Rome were established mainly because of this spice, and its trade made Venice, Genoa, Amsterdam and Bruges, Belgium, wealthy cities. Today, the United States imports more pepper than any other country. I have heard many people claim that black pepper is not healthy. I am not sure how pepper fell into disfavor, but perhaps it was guilt by association. After all, it does often sit right next to the salt, which is known to cause health problems. But black pepper is not at all risky. In fact, it aids food digestion by increasing digestive juices, including natural stomach acid. In India, practitioners of Ayurvedic medicine still use it medicinally to treat colds, flus and other infections.

Chili peppers are also great herbal foods to incorporate into your cooking—unless your palate does not let you enjoy "hot" food. Chilies contain capsaicin, which, among its other advantages, is a natural painkiller. I found the Berber Spice Mix—named for a group of tribes who live in North Africa—in The Encyclopedia of Herbs, Spices and Flavorings: A Cook's Compendium, by Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz. This is hot stuff, since it uses red chilies and cloves (which stimulate digestion by increasing stomach acid levels) as well as pepper, but if you like your food spicy, as I do, you'll enjoy this mix.

Berber Spice Mix

10 dried red chili peppers

½ teaspoon black peppercorns

½ teaspoon ground ginger

5 whole cloves

½ teaspoon coriander seeds

¼ teaspoon ajowan or cumin seeds (the more traditional ajowan is hard to find)

8 allspice berries

6 cardamom seeds (from green pods if you can find them)

½ teaspoon fenugreek

½ teaspoon cinnamon

Heat a medium-size skillet. Add the chilies and cook them for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the remaining spices and roast for 3 to 4 minutes longer, stirring constantly and shaking the pan to prevent burning, until the mixture begins to brown. Transfer to a bowl and let cool. Scrape the chili seeds out with a spoon. Grind the mixture to a fine powder and store it in an airtight container for up to 4 months. (If you cannot find ajowan, it can be omitted or replaced with cumin seeds, which have a similar flavor.)

Red chili comes with its own set of health benefits, including improving circulation. Like black pepper, chilies are used all over the world—as an essential ingredient in Indian curry, African peanut sauce, Chinese Szechuan vegetables and Thai food, for instance. And in their Mexican homeland, chili peppers are contained in most of the food. In fact, every time I make a fresh salsa like the one described below, it takes me back to memories of wonderful trips along the coast of Mexico—its warm sunshine, friendly people and relaxed living.

Green Salsa (Salsa Verde)

2 cloves garlic, chopped

¼ cup each chopped fresh cilantro leaves and chopped fresh parsley leaves

1 seeded and chopped chili pepper

1 seeded and chopped medium green bell pepper

Juice of 1 lemon

1/8 cup olive oil

Dash of ground black pepper

Combine all ingredients. Toss well. Serve with chips (baked, not fried, for your liver's sake), tortillas or bread or on top of a vegetable dish. Of course, salsa is appropriate for serving with almost any Mexican dish.