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I went to buy a bottle of balsamic vinegar yesterday but left the shop empty handed and deeply confused. There seems to be a range from cheap to Kings ransom. What to choose? I suppose you "get what you pay for" and if I can't taste the difference there's no point spending more. But I can't try them all so to be practical I have to make a guess at what the "sweet spot" ( for vinegar??) is, or know what in general I should look out for.
Any ideas how to solve this not-at-all first world problem?
I had similar questions a few years back and found this read useful
https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/05/everything-you-need-to-know-guide-to-balsamic-vinegar.html
Sounds like something you'd use for embalming.
There was an excellent piece on R4's Food Programme a few years ago.
In summary, the real stuff is grape must, barrel aged for ages and costs a lot, £10 and more. Other stuff is some grape must, mixed with vinegar. The stuff with Jamie Oliver on the bottle is actually fermented yak's sperm. Fact.
2 quid stuff from Aldi, I only use it in dressings, on strawberries, or on a lovely dish the good lady makes of a whole load of roasted delights, to give a bit of piquancy, and to soak into the crispy sourdough.
PS - I'm in no way ever going to claim to be a gourmet, just a decent home cook.
edit - what happened to the hawks sperm flashy? too labour intensive? Is the Yak a bit easier to toss off? 🙂
Aldi’s posh version and Morrison’s posh version are very good and cost less than a £10.
Proper balsamic is aged (25+ years in the very good cases) in varrying wooden barrels (e.g. a different wood for years 1-5 then 6-7 in another and so on. It loses about 85% of its volume over that period and as a result of the time and yeild is hellish expensive but very very different to the cheap stuff.
Proper stuff has the consistency of PVA glue and is best used on sweet dishes in my opinion, like ice cream and such. It comes in a very distinctive shape of bottle (from modena at least which is where all "real" balsamic comes from, though don't think all balsamic from modena is good, nor that stuff from elsewhere is bad). In any case it's probably not what you want. I usually pickup a hand luggage sized <100ml bottle in Italy when I'm there, it's in the region of €100-150 and lasts me a year or so.
For salad dressings i tend to look at something about 10-12 years old, it's like runny honey in consistency and used very sparingly is ample for a little something extra on a salad. It's not easy to find in the UK IME so again i bring it home with me, i expect to pay about €30 for a couple of 100ml at most but again, 200ml is a years supply.
For dipping bread and the like something about 5 year old should have the required stickiness without the price tag, is readily available in UK supermarkets and about £8-10 a bottle.
For cooking (i do use it in some stuff) the common or garden chap stuff is fine.
Essentially tip up up the bottle, the gloopier it is the better really, anything which isn't at least a bit sticky isn't worth much money but it's fine for the right applications.
The Belazu one is the nicest we've had from a supermarket.
Gloopy enough, not too expensive.