Malt Vinegar

09/26/2010 - 11:24

Does anyone know where I can buy Malt Vinegar? Wanting to pickle some of the excess crop and recipes are generally needing Malt Vinegar. Alternatively if no one else found Malt Vinegar around here what are you using instead and how successful is it? Thanks.

Topic

Food and Wine

Location

Ascoli Piceno Province

Marche

Ripatransone

Comment

Best to forget it here, use white/red wine vinegar, or cider vinegar for the recipe, we do here for our chutneys etc.

We went to the Fritto Misto event in Ascoli Piceno where there was a stall offering 'Fish & Chips" English style. On the counter was a 'shaker' of Sarson's Malt Vinegar. Obviously suffering from a bout of nostalgia we decided to profit from the offer of 'Genuine English Fish and Chips' so that we could have a dribble of Sarson's. Chatting to the guy who served the 'Fish & Chips' he told us that he'd brought the shaker of vinegar over when he last came from UK, and he couldn't get supplies here in Marche. Needless to say he was quite busy, and as he disappeared into his smokey and chip shop smelling world he took the 'Sarson's' with him. Anyway; nice little story I reckon; morale della favola; no Sarson's to be had here, use the red wine vinegar if I were you. We do the same as Badger and are perfectly happy with the results. p.s. The 'Genuine English Fish and Chips' were slightly worse than those offered at about 11;30 in the evening in Matlock Bath after the pubs have closed.

Lidl? They had an English food special a couple of months ago and I stocked up on vinegar, mint sauce, mustard and decent marmalade. Otherwise I have to go to malta for malt vinegar.....

Andrew you should have gone to the superior fish and chip shop in Matlock, what was it called? by Woolworths. I used to work there washing up in college holidays for 2/6 an hr!. Sorry to digress, I use red wine vinegar for my chutneys, and they are very good especially the fig chutney.

Bill and Sheila Dumelow must have chosen their staff carefully; as they did with their potatoes from Edge Brothers and Smalley, delivered by yours truely. Lidl didn't have Sarson's vinegar even during English week, however the mustard is very good as is the approximation of Branston Pickle. I can also reccomend the porridge and the Crunchy Peanut Butter during American promo.

Ram - nothing in Lidl recently but if you hear of another "English" special let me know and I will stock up for next year. Angie - as Fig chutney is on my list of "to do" then Red Wine it will be until I get someone driving over to stock me up. Might even decide the red wine is nicer and forgo the Malt all together. Thanks for your replies. Now I just need to find some coriander seed that will grow into plants rat her than more seed:-(

a friend of ours was whingeing on that there's no coriander here... i said that my employee who also has a contract with another farm was talking to me that large tracts of land here are now being planted with coriander in fact there's over 40 hectares under coriander around monte leone/belmonte etc and it's on the increase he brought me two huge sacks full..... look around and you'll find most things.you can get for example very fresh middle eastern/eastern spices here from alhal butchers for tiny money far better than anything you find packaged in supermarkets..also the meat like that is nice too....

You can keep track on what they have on offer here: http://www.lidl.it/it/home.nsf/pages/c.o.20100927.index

We are in the middle of making lots of chutney etc. Spicy peach, tomato chutney already finished and tomorrow tomato relish all using wine vinegar. In a couple of days green tomato chutney Have also made a very tasty peach jam. Soon be time to freeze a load of swedes (vegetable ones!!) that have grown really well.

Badger, thanks for the Lidl link; I will keep an eye on their specials. Made my first batch yesterday - tomatoe, fig and caramelised onion. In search of cloves today then I shall also be making the more spicy tomatoe and fruit chutneys - yum. We had so many tomatoes I have been bottling them for weeks and now have enough to keep us going all winter and some.

I am looking to start Tesco/waitrose deliveries to Le Marche for anyone interested and anything else I can put in a van. Would this be of interest for all those Brit bits you miss especially with the run up to Christmas............missing Brussell sprouts? Need a show of interest to put the package together. Would also be happy with returns especially Olive oil etc etc.

You can buy Brussels Sprouts here

were sold, along with many other herbs, in our local Italian supermarket. I think I have also seen them for sale in LIDL. They were on a stand, mixed up with flower and vegetable seeds so could easily be overlooked.

Robert has just made an aubergine curry and dhal from ingredients bought in the alhal butchers/mini market in Corradonia, they also sell fresh coriander, but I grow my own from seeds friends bring from the UK. The only disadvantage being that they will insist on talking to him about cricket all the time!

I've tried growing it the last 2 years but it always goes to seed before producing enough leaves to use. I know it can't be allowed to dry out and I have tried planting in different locations (even put some in a very large pot by door and watered it twice a day to ensure didn't dry out) but never successful. Though I do have a large supply of seeds now for cooking!! I suspect it is just to hot here for the variety of seeds I have (from England) so will have a go again with a different type of seed. Got the lemongrass covered - stewardess friend "picked" us some on one of her jaunts to Thailand and it is now growing like grass:-) Sprouts covered too - grew our own last winter though they are readily available in most supermarkets now. Yes my son and I are the ones who like sprouts:-)