S3PP: Oldtown Mustard

S3PP - Season 3 Premiere Party
Oldtown Mustard

Having a map of Westeros is really handy in this case... I was completely confusing Oldtown with Moletown and had associated this mustard with life in the North.  After checking out a map, I found that this is actually a more Southern town which makes a whole lot more sense after trying the stuff. 

Tossing it back over to my heroes at Inn at the Crossroads, you can find 2 different recipes for Oldtown Mustard here:

http://www.innatthecrossroads.com/2012/06/15/mustard-from-oldtown/

I'm not generally a fan of super spicy mustards but I wanted to keep this as period appropriate as possible.  You'll see in the link that they have 2 recipes that they made and one is probably a bit more on the mild side then the one I chose but I loved the idea of medieval mustard so I went that direction. 

The first thing I needed was the jars to put them in.  One of these puppies is going home with every visiting family so all in all, I would need 5 of them but since I like them so much, I tried to nab every one on eBay I could find.   And no, I couldn't just use any jar, oh no, I had to find the jars they used in their photographs to keep it real, yo.  I was pretty stoked that I was able to find them and in all kinds of different sizes too. 

I doubled up on my first batch which filled up 4 of the medium sized jars that I have.  And with no real way to grind up the nuts I ended up tossing them in a smoothie cup that attaches to my blender.  That was fun!  Also a very good idea to grab a 10$ coffee bean grinder to grind the mustard down if you don't have one already... this thing saved me TONS of time.... sanity... broken windows and maybe even a devastating sense of monotony as you grind these puppies by hand the old fashioned way.  Yes, I wanted to keep this as period appropriate as possible but that doesn't mean I'm not going to throw a little modernism in there to make things a bit easier on me.  Have you seen how much I'm doing here?  Whew.  Thank goodness for small electric kitchen appliances.  Thank goodness. 

I got the mustard made and working in the fridge out in the garage and feeling quite accomplished.  After a few days to let it set, I went into the fridge to test it, popped the top off of my beautiful jar and watched helplessly as it crashed to the cold concrete garage floor...  Ugh.  I think a little piece of me died as it's pieces scattered across the floor like cockroaches.
Protip:  You're going to want to try it and if you get jars like this, open them up over some carpet.

After a few choice curse words and a lovely adventure with my old friend the broom, I finally got a chance to taste the mustard... HOLY BANANAS!  This stuff is HOT.  I let my family taste it too and everyone kept asking me if there is horseradish in it... NO.. just some hot ass mustard, WHOO!  It's going to be amazing on some black bread with some sharp white cheddar!

My boyfriend is amazing... he hates mustard and at first refused to try it but after his dad had some the peer pressure set in and he bent... Surprise, he actually likes it!  It's a bit much for me but I'm going to try it dumbed down with some cheese and maybe that will mellow it out for me.  I have a couple of fans already though and ended up sending home a jar for the rents already.  If you're going to go with the medieval recipe you should be warned that this stuff is hot. 

On the plus side though, it will clear out your sinuses in a hot second!  WHOOOOO!