Making Dijon Mustard

Dijon mustard was off limits all year last year, and in one of my "great timing" moments, now that it is "technically" legal, I decided to make some. 


It started with this book from the library:

 which is a great book if you want to learn to make and use Dijon mustard. If you want any OTHER type of mustard it is totally useless, but it seems to be the only mustard book currently in publication, so beggars can't be choosers. 

It did answer a lot of questions for me, like the fact that mustard made without any ingredients that go bad won't go bad.  Add eggs & it will need to be refrigerated and will eventually go bad, but if it's just oil, water, vinegar--anything in that line--it can last indefinitely.  I had wondered, because you see mustard sitting out on tables in restaurants all the time, and since there weren't mass outbreaks of food poisoning, it seemed like it must be okay, but I'd always kept it in the refrigerator anyway.  I still have lots of questions about mustards, but to get back to the point: 

Mustard which has onions or garlic in it would go bad, because the onions or garlic would rot.  This recipe gets past that by simmering the onions and garlic in white wine

(which is a nice way to stink up the house) then it steeps for a while as it cools.  Then all the solids are strained out before adding the mustard powder, oil, honey, and salt, which is then cooked on the stove until thick:

(which is another nice way to stink up the house), then the entire batch is put into a jar and refrigerated for a few weeks to "mellow." 

I hope this turns out well.  Besides having no preservatives or unknown ingredients, it's about 1/4 the price of a bottle of Dijon mustard.  Isn't that crazy?