Keen as mustard

Well that's the way it started out but after 3 hours of doing some serious mustard production I'm afraid the enthusiasm for the pungent condiment was waning slightly. What seemed to be a relatively easy task was beginning to take on onerous overtones and I was up to my eyeballs in what could best be described as what you could normally find deposited in a baby's nappy.
It started out simply enough with a sighting of some cute little bottles which just begged to filled with something as delicious as a genuine homemade mustard. We're talking mustard from scratch here, not buying a tin of Mr Colemans powder and mixing with water. So having sourced the yellow and black mustard seeds I set about the task at hand with great gusto, feeling at one with nature and cursing the fact that in my desire to produce an artisan mustard I had in fact overlooked the most important piece of equipment. Mixing the mustard would be no problem, bowls, spoons, blenders abound in my kitchen but how the hell was I going to grind it to a fine powder without a mill ? Well necessity is the mother of invention and I kind of felt that a coarse mustard would be more appropriate anyway just to prove to any future doubting Thomas that I had in fact produced the condiment from scratch, so I used the spare electric coffee bean grinder that normally zaps my curry spices. It was a slow process but reasonably efficient.
After the grinding process it was plain sailing, merely a matter of blending the ground seeds with some liquid, seasonings and a little bit of oil to produce what looked exactly like a fine wholegrain mustard - the problem was that it didn't taste exactly like a fine wholegrain mustard but seemingly that is only to be expected as it must now go through a 2 week seasoning period in bulk in a refrigerator before bottling. This process, which is often carried out in a wooden barrel, in a similar fashion to wine will allow the mustard to mellow and tone down the sharpness.
If you fancy making your own mustard place the ground seeds in a blender working on about 1/3 yellow seeds to 2/3 black seeds with the the former being more finely ground. Add enough liquid to create the consistency you want and this can be whatever you fancy as long as it is cold - water, beer, wine, verjus all work fine. Make about 1/3 of the liquid content a vinegar of some description, balsamic, white or red wine, grape or even cider or grape vinegar. Season with salt, pepper or spices and a little turmeric will help with the colour as yellow mustard seeds tend to go a little grey. Add about 200 ml of oil per kg of mustard mix. Remember to be patient and let the mustard develop before consuming.