Verjuice: the Condiment of the Bard

Stratford_Bill

Verjuice was a popular condiment during the middle ages. Mostly it was made from unripe grapes, but it can be made from any unripe fruit or unpoisonous berry - including blackberries. It is simply the juice of unripe fruit - nothing more.
You can get grape verjuice in bottles imported from South Africa with a little difficulty, or you can make it for nothing by extracting the juice from anything unripe in the garden.
Use it instead of lemon or vinegar, put it in soups, stews etc. Or use it to make a salad dressing and find out what Shakespeare would have put on his salads during his salad days.

thriftlady_2

How do you actually make it Bill? Do you just squeeze the juice and mix with oil for a salad dressing ?

Sound very interesting.

Stratford_Bill

Yes. You can use it like vinegar to make a simple dressing along with olive oil. Which reminds me, you can put this dressing in the hole in an avocado half.

dannie

Has anybody used crab apples to make verjuice? What did you use it for?
Thanks.

ceridwen

..and I'd like a recipe please for this - and suggested uses.

Thanks.

dannie

ceridwen, my query was due to finding a lot of crab apples and reading about their usage for verjuice. I wondered if you could make apple cider vinegar with them using the same recipe technique?

These links are quite interesting -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verjuice

http://www.coquinaria.nl/english/recipes/verjuice.htm

http://www.classic.com.au/wizard/verjuice2005.htm