Rose's January Shop Watch: Balsamic Vinegar
Balsamic Vinegar
The Oil Merchant
What?
La Vecchia Dispensa PGI Red Label Balsamic Vinegar
Why?
Enliven your salads this month without the calories
“Let a salad–maker be a spendthrift for oil, a miser for vinegar, a statesman for salt and a madman for mixing”. This is the famous quote for how to make a dressing for a salad. But I am going to suggest reversing the roles of the madman and the spendthrift if you are counting calories this month. For the olive oil has 10 times as many calories as the vinegar. But it must be a very good vinegar if it is to be the main flavour enhancer, which is where a quality balsamic vinegar comes in. There are many balsamic vinegars on the market - some are perfectly fine for cooking with, but will not do the job here. Others come close to gold in price, they are aged for over 20 years, and are used a drop at a time. However for a salad dressing, you want a balsamic which has some age, is slightly thick in consistency and a good depth of flavour without being too sweet.
The one I am recommending is La Vecchia Dispensa PGI Red Label. I know I wrote about this Company last year when I featured a fig balsamic (which enlivens a plate of Parma ham), but this artisan company, from just outside Modena, consistently produces some of the best balsamic vinegar you can buy. This one used to be called “8 Year Old” but stricter rules now govern its naming. Its rich taste comes from the wooden barrels it has been aged in, and it is still liquid enough to coat your salad leaves. So make this the spendthrift for your dressing.
Just a word on the oil - if you are being miserly, then try to use one which is big on flavour. I would suggest a fruity extra virgin olive oil, or the lemon oil Colonna Granverde (also from The Oil Merchant), which was first written about by my good friend Simon Hopkinson - untreated organic lemons are pressed directly with the olives so the flavour zings.
And finally try to make your salads interesting by using salad leaves that have more flavour: radicchio; chopped chicory; shaved fennel; rocket.
Conclusion:
Worth being generous with
Product Details:
La Vecchia Dispensa PGI Red Label Balsamic Vinegar
250ml
£13.50 + p&p
Contact:
The Oil Merchant
Tel.: 0208 740 1335
oilmerchant.co.uk
Availability and price as at 31st December 2018