If you pour oil and vinegar into the same vessel, you would call them not friends but opponents.
Red wine vinegar has some personality as well acidity.
If I am making a spice rub or a spice mix for a braise or even just to crust a piece of fish, I'll use mustard seeds. If you soak them in a little bit of vinegar and let them get plumped and soft and then you puree them, they're delicious.
Every time I feel like something is missing from a dish, I think, 'Oh, I know, I'll add a pinch of dry ginger.' If it's not salt and it's not vinegar, it's probably missing dry ginger.
A splash of red wine vinegar can pull things together like a pinch of salt.
As my Sicilian grandfather used to say, you get more flies with honey than with vinegar, right?
I find that most home cooks don't get vinegars. They're misunderstood, mostly due to the factory-made red wine vinegar that everyone commonly cooks with... that, and the giant gallon of white distilled vinegar that we all use, mostly to clean and disinfect things!
London is my home. I miss my family so much; it's hard being away. And I miss salt and vinegar crisps. And Marmite. And good fudge. Oh my God. Clotted cream fudge.
Dark chocolate, and salt and vinegar chips are my weakness - but not together.
If I had the choice between smoked salmon and tinned salmon, I'd have it tinned. With vinegar.
