Vinegar, like many ingenious inventions. Received by accident. Once upon a time, thousands of years ago, winemakers forgot about one barrel of wine, and when they found the loss, they were surprised by the taste – from prolonged contact with oxygen, the wine turned sour. Today vinegar is made not only from wine, but you can use any of the types in your kitchen.
Table Vinegar
This is the most popular type of vinegar, as it is inexpensive and widely used in both cooking and household purposes. Table vinegar is made from ethyl alcohol, which is oxidized by acetic acid bacteria. Then the vinegar is cleaned and pasteurized. You can use table vinegar to marinate all foods and make sauces.
Apple vinegar
This type of vinegar is made from apple cider juice using honey, sugar and water. This vinegar is much softer than table vinegar, it has an apple flavor and aroma. Therefore, this vinegar is more often used for the preparation of salads and marinades. Apple cider vinegar is also popular in folk medicine.
Red wine vinegar
This vinegar is made from red wine by fermentation in an oak barrel, so red wine vinegar has a pleasant woody aroma. Dressing salads, making sauces based on it – you can show your imagination!
White wine vinegar
This vinegar is acidified from white wine in the manner described above, only steel vats are used for fermentation. White vinegar tastes milder, so it can be safely added to soups, sauces and marinades.
Rice vinegar
The sweet-tasting rice vinegar, however, has a deceiving first impression. It is quite “aggressive” and is made from fermented rice or rice wine. It is good to marinate meat with rice vinegar – it will become much softer.
Malt vinegar
This vinegar is made from beer malt, wort. It tastes soft and has a unique fruity aroma. Due to its rather high cost, malt vinegar is not popular in our country, but abroad it is often used for pickling and cooking.
Sherry vinegar
It is also wine vinegar, but it belongs to the so-called noble types, since sherry vinegar has the richest flavor and aroma composition. This is due to both the taste of the sherry itself and the oak barrels in which the vinegar is aged. Sherry vinegar is used mainly for soups, main courses and dressings.
Balsamic vinegar
The birthplace of balsamic vinegar is Italy. It is prepared from thick boiled grape juice syrup, which is poured into 3 types of barrels – small, medium and large. After the first exposure time, part of the vinegar from the small barrel is poured into bottles for sale, and the missing amount is added from the middle to the small one. They also do the same with vinegar from a large barrel – it is poured into a medium one. Fresh syrup is added to the large one. The more vinegar is aged, the sweeter and richer its taste, the higher the price. Balsamic vinegar is used for dressing salads, soups, hot dishes, sauces and as a decoration.