Victor Sack wrote:
>
> Melba's Jammin' > wrote:
>
> > (Victor Sack) wrote:
> > >
> > > Shame on you! Mustard loses its bite very, very fast if not
> > > refrigerated.
> >
> > I do keep ONE kind of mustard refrigerated, Bubba. Some great
> > Dusselddorfer stuff. Tasty.
>
> All mustards need to be kept refrigerated.
I keep my mustard refrigerated, but when I opened
a new jar of the same brand as the old jar (Trader
Joe's dijon mustard), I noticed the bite was much
greater in the new jar. I use rather a lot of
mustard (especially since discovering the frozen
Australian range-fed ribeye steaks at Trader Joe's).
I'm coming around to the idea that mustard should
be replaced at regular intervals, no matter how
much you use. A few pennies worth of mustard
greatly enhances a $4-$5 steak that has been
pan-seared, chilled, and cut into thin slices.
It's a false economy to use less than the best
mustard.
I'm almost to the point of saying a new jar
should be opened each time. If I adopted that
strategy, I would be throwing away about 7 jars
per week.
Perhaps there's an alternative? The chemical
responsible for the bite is allyl isothiocyanate,
which has a melting point of -80C. It's not going
to freeze in my freezer, so I'm not sure it would
extend the life of the mustard by freezing it in
something like an ice cube tray. I think it
would continue to evaporate, and that freezing
would be futile. Plus, it would contaminate
all that chocolate I keep in my freezer.