The idea of a DIY vanilla extract has been floating around the food blog world for a little while. When I first read about the process, the instructions seemed so fastidious that I shrugged and clicked away. (This is, in passing, one of the challenges the recipe writer faces: providing the necessary dose of guidance, but avoiding instruction overload.)

Still, I was increasingly bothered by the imbalance between the wowing qualities of the vanilla beans I’d splurged on, and the dullness of the store-bought vanilla extract I had on hand. So, why not use the former to create a better version of the latter?

I was increasingly bothered by the imbalance between the wowing vanilla beans I’d splurged on, and the dullness of the store-bought vanilla extract I had on hand. So, why not use the former to create a better version of the latter?

Perhaps some of you will wonder, if I have fresh vanilla beans, why use extract at all? And the answer is that they don’t serve the same purpose. Fresh beans need to be steeped in a liquid ingredient (milk, cream, syrup…) to release their flavor, so they can only be used in recipes that call for such an ingredient, like sauces, ice creams, or custards. Vanilla extract, on the other hand, is ready-to-use and can be added directly, without steeping, to cake batters, cookie doughs, cocktails, etc.

And really, as I found out when I looked into it with a little more attention, making your own extract could not be simpler: place vanilla beans in a jar, fill with liquor, close, shake, and wait. The process is even simpler than preserving your own lemons and you’ll likely wonder, as I did, what took you so long.

Vodka is often mentioned as the ideal liquor for this because its neutral flavor won’t overshadow that of the vanilla, but I opted to use rum, which I like to use in my baking (canelés, crêpes and yogurt cake without rum are like a kiss without a mustache*) and find a perfect match to vanilla. I love the complexity of the resulting extract, but you can use whatever liquor you prefer, provided it is about 40% alcohol.

Commercial vanilla extract is generally sweetened, too, but I see no reason to make the process more complex, and the quantities of extract used in most recipes are so small that it’s unnecessary to make up for the difference in sugar.

And of course, need I mention that homemade vanilla extract makes a great gift for the food enthusiast?

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* “Like a kiss without a mustache” is a literal translation of comme un baiser sans moustache, a French idiom that means that one thing is pointless without the other. Similar, but less perky: comme un violon sans cordes (like a violin without strings) or comme une soupe sans sel (like soup without salt).

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This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Read the introductory Edible Idiom post, and browse the list of French idioms featured so far.

This week’s expression is “Mi-figue mi-raisin.”

Literally translated as “half fig half grape,” it is used as an adjective to mean that a thing, a statement, or a person is ambiguous, or mixed: half good and half bad, half pleasant and half unpleasant, half happy and half sad, half willing and half reluctant, half serious and half joking*… The exact nature of the ambiguity is inferred from the context.

Example 1: “Son livre a reçu des critiques mi-figue mi-raisin.” “His book received lukewarm reviews.”

Example 2: “Elle a déballé son cadeau et nous a remerciés d’un air mi-figue mi-raisin.” “She unwrapped her gift and thanked us with a mixed expression on her face.”

Example 3: “Quand je lui ai demandé s’il comptait démissionner, il m’a fait une réponse mi-figue mi-raisin.” “When I asked him if he planned to quit, he gave me an ambiguous reply.”

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As I mentioned in the January newsletter and on this forum thread, one of my current aspirations is to learn more about Japanese cooking.

I have worked on assembling a good pantry of essentials — always the most daunting step when one tackles a new style of cuisine, I think — and now the real fun has begun, as I teach myself the basics by following trusted recipes.

Maki, whose blog Just Hungry has been around for about as long as mine, has been a great help in that endeavor, thanks to her approachable voice and limpid instructions. Her bento blog, too, is a bottomless source of inspiration.

The sauce is very quickly put together from just a handful of ingredients, and it lends the quinoa a keen, lightly caramelized flavor that is most flattering.

I also have a Japanese friend living in Paris, with whom I have plans to swap cooking lessons: I’ll teach her French recipes and she’ll teach me Japanese recipes, an arrangement for which our respective boyfriends show unrestrained support.

And I have been using a lovely cookbook called Une Japonaise à Paris, written by Kaori Endo. In it this young Japanese woman, who works in the kitchen of the new Rose Bakery location in the Marais, shares homestyle recipes using ingredients that are reasonably easy to find in a city such as Paris.

One of the dishes in this book is a kamo-soba salad that features duck (kamo) magret with leeks and buckwheat noodles (soba), a combination of flavors that is classic in Japanese cuisine, Kaori-san notes. I haven’t yet tried making the recipe in its entirety, but the sauce used to dress the noodles caught my eye, and has become a favorite way of seasoning quinoa.

It is very quickly put together — it can be prepared while the quinoa cooks — from just a handful of ingredients, and it lends the quinoa a keen, lightly caramelized flavor that is most flattering. We usually have it warm when it’s freshly cooked, as a side to grilled mackerel or duck breast for instance, and eat the leftovers at rooom temperature the next day, topped with smoked tofu or soft-center hard-boiled eggs.

I will note that quinoa is absolutely not a traditional Japanese ingredient, but when I consulted Maki, she replied that “it has become more popular recently as a healthy whole grain, or as it’s called in Japanese zakkoku (mixed grains or coarse grains). Quinoa in Japan is called kinua (キヌア) in katakana, indicating it’s an imported food (and word). As far as I can recall, it’s only in the last 5-6 years or so that it began appearing in Japanese magazines and cookbooks. Health-conscious people use it in all kinds of dishes, with Western, Asian or Japanese flavors.”

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This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food and drink. Read the introductory Edible Idiom post, and browse the list of French idioms featured so far.

This week’s idiom is, “Mettre de l’eau dans son vin.”

Literally translated as, “putting water in one’s wine,” it means lessening one’s demands or ambitions, mellowing, deciding to adopt a more moderate stand on an issue or in an argument.

It can be used in a positive sense (being more tolerant, making an effort to reach a compromise*) or, though more rarely, in a negative sense (giving up on one’s ideals, selling out).

Example: “Au début, elle ne voulait pas que son fils joue à des jeux vidéo le soir en semaine, et puis elle a mis de l’eau dans son vin, et maintenant il a le droit de jouer une fois qu’il a fini ses devoirs.” “Initially, she didn’t want her son to play video games on weeknights, but then she put water in her wine, and now he’s allowed to play when he’s done with his homework.”

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