Chive flower vinegar.

Chive flower vinegar at Maddocks Farm Organics

Chive flower vinegar can hardly be called a recipe but it is a beauty to behold.

Ingredients.

White balsamic vinegar

Chive flowers

Beautiful chive flower growing at www.maddocksfarmorganics.co.uk

Balsamic vinegar has a sweet and less astringent flavour than other white vinegars and is simply lovely with the chive flowers. White wine vinegar is also slightly yellow and the colour transformation is not so impressive.

There are two ways of doing this.

Chive flowers just added.

Method 1:

Either decant your white balsamic vinegar into a nice bottle or in my case simply soak off the label.

Remove about 15% -20% of the vinegar out of the bottle and gently shove chive heads down the neck of the bottle using something as delicate as the handle of a wooden spoon. Put as few or as many in as you like but the more flowers involved then the stronger the flavour and colour.

Put to one side and vigorously shake every few hours until the vinegar has turned a stunning 'Barbie' pink and you have a wonderful mild chive flavoured vinegar which makes beautiful salad dress.



Method 2:

Decant your white wine vinegar into a jug and fill with chive flowers. When the flowers have bleached all their colour into the vinegar then strain the pink vinegar into a clean dry bottle.

Obviously the second method produces something more refined but I quite like looking at the chives in the bottle and seeing their colour slowly bleaching out until they remain like ghosts of their former flowery selves.

Drizzled over salad leaves with a sprinkle of sea salt and glug of olive oil to make an incredible flavoured and coloured dressing.

No photoshopping required. Bright pink oniony vinegar. Stunning!

Edible chive flowers at Maddocks Farm Organics.