Make Your Own Condiments

​Several years ago, I started making my own Mayonnaise and Ketchup for Passover. I needed both during the week, but the special, kosher for Passover products at the store were crazy expensive and didn’t taste very good. It irked me to spend so much on a bottle of Ketchup only to throw most of it away after the holiday.

​I thought, how hard can it be?

Turns out, not hard at all. 

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Once I tasted the richness of Mayonnaise made with a fresh farm egg and the surprising umami of freshly made Ketchup, I wondered what else I could make at home.

Tartar Sauce was a good candidate. I love it on fried fish, but I don’t make that very often, so I would open a jar and by the next time I needed it, the jar had spoiled. Much tastier and more economical just to make as much as I needed for the one meal.

In a kosher home, I don’t mix dairy and meat products at the same meal, so I usually enjoy a baked potato with a splash of olive oil instead of Sour Cream when I make it as a side to steak. I have a recipe for rich creamy parve Chocolate Mousse that uses tofu, which I was making for a particular grilled meal, so I created Parve Sour Cream with just ¼ cup of the tofu.
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Kosher for Passover Mustard is a weird chemical mixture, comprised mostly of turmeric and acetic acid because white vinegar, which is made from grain, is prohibited during the holiday. But mustard seed itself is not. This year I found locally made pure wine vinegar – without any grain – and made the most delicious Yellow Mustard I have every eaten. The whole seed Mustards I made were a mixed success; two of them were so spicy and bitter they were inedible. The third, made with red wine vinegar and a little sugar, turned out reasonably tasty, but I will have to make it a couple of more times to get it just right.
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Tehina is a new darling in the foody-verse, but my love of Israeli food made it a staple in my pantry years ago. The pure sesame seed pureé, known as tahini (ta-hee-nee) is bitter. It needs to be mixed with water and a few other things to become the Tehina sauce that is so popular. Prepared Tehina can be used alone or as an ingredient in Hummus, salad dressings, and all kinds of sauces.

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Vinegar is another condiment or ingredient I use often. Sometimes when I feel like a dish is missing something – something I can’t put my finger on – it turns out that a splash of good vinegar does the trick. This year, a few weeks before Passover I participated in the amazing Kosher Food & Wine Virtual Experience, sponsored by Royal Wine Corp. The tasting kit included 25 small bottles of wine! The 2½ hour tasting program left me with a lot of opened bottles, so I currently have two jars of vinegar hanging out in a cabinet – one red and one white. Vinegar takes longer than these other condiments to develop; I will check it in three weeks. Right now I can tell you that when that cabinet opens I get a nose-full of vinegar, so I have high hopes for it.
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In the meantime, I hope you will give some of these recipes a try and let me know how you like your homemade condiments.
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