The Miracle of Vinegar: 150 easy recipes and uses for home, health and beauty. Aggie MacKenzie
and will also be less likely to cause acid reflux or heartburn in those prone to it.
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RICE VINEGAR
This is made from rice and water, which are left to brew and then sometimes flavoured with salt. Useful for quick pickles (eg radish and cucumber) or for splashing over stir-fries.
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SHERRY VINEGAR
Like sherry itself, from Fino to PX there’s a huge range of flavours for this vinegar – and again, the more you spend, the more complex the character. Some makes have colour added, so check the bottle before you buy. A basic one is good added to gravies, or use it to cut through a fatty sausage – see tip here or the couscous salad here. The PX vinegar is sweetish and smooth and works well with dark fruits such as blackberries.
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VERJUS
Not strictly a vinegar, but it is often used in the same way to finish off recipes or added to pan sauces. It’s made by pressing unripened green grapes and has a raisin-y/apple-y aroma and taste. Also good with summer fruits – see Peaches with Verjus and Rosemary here – and salads that feature toasted nuts and cheeses. It’s not as sharp as most vinegars, so it allows other ingredients to sing rather than be swamped.
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WHITE WINE VINEGAR
The go-to for a light salad dressing when you need a touch of acidity – use one-part vinegar to three-parts mild olive oil. You can also use it to make a shallot pickle to go with a curry as here.
A large Norwegian study widely publicised in the UK at large Norwegian study widely publicised in the UK at the beginning of 2018 showed that regular use of cleaning sprays has a negative impact on lung health – similar to smoking 20 cigarettes a day over 10 to 20 years.
Vinegar, on the other hand, is biodegradable and provides a hostile environment for many types of germs. What makes it such a good cleaning agent? Acidity. Shop-bought distilled malt vinegar (the clear stuff) contains around 5% acetic acid and 95% water – fine for most general cleaning.
Vinegar is great for cutting through soap scum and limescale on shower glass, grease on cooker tops, and it’ll strip wax build-up from a wooden floor. There’s almost no end to the multitude of types of dreck it can conquer. (But don’t use it on marble because it will mark the soft stone.)
You might want to vary the dilution depending on the task: you could use neat vinegar for mould on grouting or to disinfect a chopping board, whereas a 50:50 solution with water will work for general wiping down. A quick spritz of this mix will neutralise kitchen and bathroom smells.
Because it’s natural, it’s great for outdoor jobs such as wiping down patio furniture, cleaning exterior windows… and even getting rid of weeds!
LIMESCALE ON TAPS
No need to spend your hard-earned cash on specialist products – much better to use bog-standard distilled malt vinegar (the clear, colourless stuff) instead. For ordinary chrome taps (don’t use this on special finishes, it might be too strong and ruin your bespoke surface), soak a few sheets of kitchen paper with the vinegar, wrap these around the taps and cover with a plastic bag. Secure the lot with an elastic band so that the vinegar stays in contact with the taps and does its work. Leave on overnight, then the next morning, the scale should lift off fairly easily – just wipe it with a cloth. If it’s really thick and annoyingly stubborn, repeat the process. You can take off any remaining bits of scale with a plastic scourer.
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DESCALE YOUR KETTLE
If you live in a hard-water area you’ll definitely have limescale, and the build-up of this is one of the main reasons why electric kettles meet their death. When the metal element gets coated with scale, this stops the heat getting into the water as efficiently, which can cause overheating (which will shorten the kettle’s life). Stop this happening by descaling the kettle about once a month: fill it with half water and half clear vinegar – make sure it comes up over the scale line – and bring it to the boil. Switch off and leave overnight. Please note – it is really important to use clear vinegar for this; if you use the brown malt variety, the liquid inside the kettle will massively expand and erupt and you’ll have a vinegary water mess all over the floor (this happened to me). Empty the kettle, rinse, refill and reboil a couple more times with plain water until every last trace of vinegariness has gone. If the scale is really bad and it’s not all gone, repeat the process. If there are bits of scale around the rim, where the vinegar doesn’t quite reach, gently rub around here with an emery board and it’ll come off easily.
Next time you buy a kettle, get one with a built-in water filter. It’ll improve the taste of your tea, get rid of scum and help reduce the amount of limescale build-up. Other things you can do are empty and rinse before refilling with fresh water each time you boil (this helps to get rid of loose scale), boil only as much water as you need, pour away any surplus water before it cools down, and empty the kettle before you go to bed.
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ANYONE FOR SCALE-FREE COFFEE?
If your electric coffee maker has become a bit grotty and scalebound, add a 50:50 ratio of clear vinegar and tap water to the water chamber and run the machine through a cycle, sans coffee. Repeat this a couple more times, just with plain water. Some coffee-machine makers want you to use their own descalers, so check the instructions first to see if that’s the case (it could affect the warranty if anything went wrong).
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DEODORISE YOUR DISHWASHER
If your machine has suddenly developed a nasty whiff, first remove and wash the filter in hot soapy water, then check the spray arms for any bits of food and clean them, too. If you’ve never done this (which is perhaps the reason why you may have one or two problems), check the machine’s manual to find out how to do it – it’s really easy, and it’s a good idea to do this weekly. Also, take a wodge of kitchen paper along the gap where the bottom of the door meets the base of the machine – you might get a shock at the amount of rotting dreck lurking there. Once you’ve done those bits, throw a cup of clear vinegar into the machine and run an empty cycle – this is great for keeping the pipes clear of grease and limescale.
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BRING A SHINE TO YOUR FLOOR TILES
A soap-based cleaner can leave a tiled floor cloudy and dull, so to get that shiny finish, use a solution of mainly warm water with a good slug of clear vinegar. Make sure your mophead is made of microfibre (it cleans way more effectively, and most can be washed in the machine. There is no point in ‘cleaning’ a floor with a filthy mop).
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BLOCKED SINK?
Before you call out an emergency plumber or spend a small fortune on environmentally unfriendly products, try this. Mix together 200g coarse salt and 100g bicarbonate of soda and pour it down the drain. Follow this with a cup of any type of vinegar plus a kettle full of boiling water. You’ll witness a mini-explosion in your sink, but this is good – it’ll help clear the blockage. Often (if the pipes are blocked with some solidified fat, for instance) this’ll do the trick.
But don’t wait until the kitchen sink gets blocked – treat your waste pipe to a monthly clear-out with a handful of bicarbonate