White Balsamic Vinegar.
My all time favourite vinegar. Plus, a Marinated Mozzarella & Tomato Pasta Salad.
Welcome to ingredient, where once a month I take a deep dive into some of my favourite seasonal and store cupboard ingredients. This month I’m focusing on White Balsamic Vinegar: the tangy yet sweet, light and pale yellow condiment that just so happens to be my favourite everyday vinegar.
Additionally, at the bottom of this post you’ll find my recipe for my new favourite pasta salad, creamy and punchy with marinated mozzarella and brightened with pops of fresh tomatoes. I’m also hoping to have a hearty summer salad recipe, and a new seasonal drink recipe ready for you later in the month.
Now, paid subscribers might have noticed I still owe you a pistachio recipe: it’s current absence is something we very much need to chalk up to life lately, but rest assured it’s tested, I just need to find some time to photograph it so it can land in your inboxes as soon as possible!
To receive these recipes, plus access all of the recipes from past newsletters as well as my Kitchen Cupboards interviews, you can upgrade your subscription here. And, if you fancy exploring the archives for more inspiration, last June we were discussing English Rhubarb: the delicious, wholesome stalks that occur if we just let a rhubarb crown grow outside without interfering with it.
I’ve got many bottles of vinegar in my kitchen - red wine, white wine (as well as a homemade bottle infused with tarragon), sherry, balsamic (both thick and Italian and British and made from apples, ACV (with various flavour variations), port (this one makes an excellent salad dressing), basil infused, raspberry… but my favourite of all these vinegars? I’m never without a bottle of white balsamic vinegar. Or, as it has to be labelled now because Italians are (rightly) fussy about what can or cannot be called (geographically) balsamic (though recipes from about 10 years ago will still call it white balsamic): white condiment.
It does not sound very sexy, does it? In complete contrast to the actual vinegar.
Tangy, yet light and with a lovely sweetness it’s what I reach for when I don’t want the caramel depths of a regular balsamic, and I also don’t want something with full out astringency. It’s a vinegar that works in so many places, but in our house is most often found simply whisked with good extra virgin olive oil and a pinch of salt before being used as a dressing for soft green salad leaves, a trick I learned from a fancy steakhouse in Vienna where we just could not stop eating the salad.
White balsamic vinegar (and it did say white balsamic vinegar on the bottle back then) first arrived in my kitchen via the medium of one of my favourite cookery writers Diana Henry, who uses it a lot. After adding it to the pan (her Roast Chicken with Peaches, Honey and Lavender, but made with thyme instead on pg 74 of A Bird In The Hand is very much loved in our house!) I licked the spoon. It was light, tart, yet sweet and addictive. I use white balsamic in my Pineapple Shrub recipe as it has a sweetness that is a refreshing in a way other non-infused vinegars rarely manage.
It’s agrodolce1 in it’s simplest form.
So what is white balsamic vinegar exactly?
Well, white balsamic vinegar is balsamic vinegar, it’s just produced in a slightly different way. To make thick, dark and syrupy balsamic vinegar white grapes (plus their skins, seeds and stems) are crushed, cooked until thick and syrupy then aged in barrels. White balsamic is a result of pressure cooking then a much sorter ageing process, resulting in it’s pale golden colour and much lighter flavour, whilst still retaining signature sweetness that makes it a balsamic.
You don’t need to be fussy about if the bottle says ‘White Balsamic’ or ‘White Condiment’ as long as you’ve purchased a product from a good source who have not used any shortcuts (we all know the difference between thin, stringent supermarket balsamic and the good, rich, thick stuff!) - the only difference if you’ve got a good one is that the former is from Moderna, and the latter is not. Saying you can only get good balsamic from Moderna I think would be like saying you can only get good French sparkling wine from Champagne (something which any good bottle of Cremant de Loire can disprove after a single sip!)
I’m on a bit of a pasta salad kick at the moment, so to showcase how white balsamic vinegar can both lean into sweetness and add much needed acidity today I’ve finished work on a pasta salad recipe that’s been in my head for a while, pairing intensely flavoured marinated mozzarella with a mixture of fresh and preserved tomatoes and plenty of basil for something that gets better the longer it sits in the fridge.
Whilst yes, this is a column about white balsamic vinegar, before we get onto the recipe proper I wanted to talk a bit about one of my favourite new ingredients: Isle of White Tomatoes’ Oak-Smoked Tomatoes. I grabbed my first jar pushing my trolley around Macknade, doing a little shopping after picking up my ingredients for my monthly recipe in the middle of what was a particularly bad day so I thought I’d treat myself.
This little jar of brilliance may not be cheap, but I just can’t. stop. buying. them. Not only is the smoke flavour fantastic but they’re the most tender and juicy preserved tomatoes I’ve ever had without making them myself. They’re amazing in salads, on hummus toast (my go-to breakfast whilst I was waiting for the first of the local Kent tomatoes to come through) and the reserved oil once you’ve finished the jar is incredible for roasting vegetables. Here in this pasta salad, they help punch up the sauce and add a depth of tomato flavour alongside the fresh you can only really get by adding tomatoes in two different ways, here fresh and cooked then preserved.
In other but related news: doesn’t their Oak Smoked Tomato Balsamic sound amazing??
Marinated Mozzarella & Tomato Pasta Salad
Serves: 2-4 (as a main meal or a side dish), Preparation time: 20 minutes, plus resting time, Cooking time: 12 minutes
This is a bright, punchy and fresh pasta salad for summer. It has all the classic flavours of tomato, basil and mozzarella, a pasta-centric riff on an Ottolenghi marinated mozzarella from Plenty I’ve already riffed on so many times I’m not sure it bares much resemblance to the original, though I still love it anyway.
Unless you really can’t stand leftovers (?!) don’t bother halving it as it only improves after an overnight rest in the fridge.
2 x 125g balls mozzarella
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp fennel seeds
zest of 1 small lemon
large handful of fresh basil, shredded
1 small garlic clove, crushed
sea salt
200g dried pasta (British Spatziola from Waverly Mill worked really well here, but any short shape with plenty of curves to carry the dressing and little bits of cheese will work well!)
150g cherry tomatoes, randomly sliced2
60g preserved slow roasted (or good sun-dried) tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 tsp white balsamic vinegar
Tear the mozzarella and place it in the bottom of a large mixing bowl. Pour over the olive oil, and add the fennel seeds, rubbing them between your fingertips as you add them to the bowl to release their perfume. Follow with the lemon zest, shredded basil, crushed garlic and a generous few pinches of salt. Fold the marinade ingredients into the mozzarella and leave to infuse whilst you cook the pasta.
Do so in a pan of boiling salted water until just off your usual point of al-dente. For a pasta salad you always want to go slightly under as the shapes will absorb more liquid from the dressing, especially if you’re making ahead! Rinse under the cold tap until completely cold, then set aside to drain as well as you can.
Add the cherry tomatoes and preserved tomatoes to the mozzarella, followed by the pasta and the white balsamic. Fold everything together until the pasta is well coated, and check and see if you want to add any more salt for savoury depth.
Leave to stand for at least 10 minutes, but preferably half an hour before serving.
Both sweet and sour.
We’re on cherry tomatoes at the moment as they’re the first good local ones I’m getting, but depending on where you live and as the season progresses, use any good full flavoured summer tomato here!
Yum 😍😍
Youbhad me at white balsamic - yum