Tarragon Vinaigrette Salad Dressing

Tarragon Vinegar

I have been really enjoying this lately on all of my salads but especially on breakfast or brunch salads. 

This first step is to make tarragon vinegar.  And the first step for that is to grow some tarragon.  Make sure it is French tarragon, not Russian, according to my best sources.  Cut a sprig of tarragon and put it in a jar or bottle of vinegar.  I tried both red wine vinegar and apple cider vinegar this year.  So far, I think I like the red wine vinegar best.  For interest, add a clove of garlic and/or a red pepper to the mix.  Let stand until the flavor of the herb is extracted by the  vinegar (maybe 2 weeks, or so), then use like vinegar to make vinaigrette.

For the dressing, I mix tarragon vinegar and olive oil about 50:50 (just by eye), add salt, ground pepper, about 1/4 tsp ground mustard, and about 1/4 tsp garlic salt.  Sometimes I do this in a small serving pitcher and stir up with a fork but it works very well in a jelly jar or other seal-able jar which can be shaken.  That's it; it's great.

If you have a crop of tarragon and some small fancy bottles, a bottle of tarragon vinegar makes a nice present and probably has more visual appeal than my canning jars.