Celebrating Vinegar Day in Style

30th October, 2020

The very beginning of November marks Vinegar Day – an American awareness day by definition, created to ‘celebrate the rainbow of preparations and flavours of vinegar’, demonstrating to consumers that there’s more to the category than just white, malt and balsamic.

As a producer of an array of authentic Japanese seasonings and vinegars, this is definitely an ethos that we adhere to and we couldn’t let the day go past without using it to introduce our very own range of vinegars to a wider UK audience of chefs.

We’ve been perfecting our vinegar brewing craft for more than 200 years; for example, Mizkan pioneered brewing vinegars with sake cake lees, creating the unique combination of rich umami with vinegar tang for the sushi vinegars that we are famous for today.

Vinegar has long been an important ingredient in Japanese cuisine and culture. It is the element that that gives the rice in sushi its distinctive flavour, while also being prized for its numerous health benefits, including aiding circulatory issues and countering fatigue.

This magic ingredient comes in three main variants, Pure Rice Vinegar which is typified by its clear aroma, rich flavour, and mellow acidity, Pure Sake Cake Vinegar (sake cake are the lees left over from the sake making process) which is typically aged for a deeper , more full bodied umami flavour and Spirit Vinegar which is light and mild in comparison. Each of our vinegars has a different level of taste and tanginess to suit a range of dishes and preferences – for more detailed information visit our product page here https://www.mizkanchef.com/en/japanese-ingredients/vinegar/

To celebrate Vinegar Day, our highly skilled development chef Ron Laity, has created a sumptuous Vinegared Black Belly Pork & Pickled Apple Slice dish using our Shiragiku Vinegar – a spirit vinegar with a mellow acidity, making it the perfect accompaniment to pork when mixed with a sweet maple syrup.

If you’re a chef and want to recreate this dish, fear not – Ron has provided a detailed recipe here https://www.mizkanchef.com/en/chef-recipes/vinegared-black-belly-pork-pickled-apple-slice/ If you do create your own version, be sure to share it with us on Instagram @MizkanchefUK. Or, if you’d prefer, do share with us your own vinegar-inspired creation as we’d love to see it. Let’s make every day vinegar day!