Everlasting Mint Sauce – Lavender and Lovage

A “new” old vintage, country recipe for “Everlasting Mint Sauce”. I make every year with my garden mint, before it dies back in the winter.

An Old Country Recipe from Northumberland

A “new” old vintage, country recipe for “Everlasting Mint Sauce”. This fabulous recipe is one I make every year with my garden mint, before it dies back in the winter.

I usually manage to make several jars, which last right through until the mint is back in late spring and early summer.

Once made, all you have to do when you serve the mint sauce (and, it’s not just for lamb), is to spoon some into a serving bowl, and add a little more vinegar to it.

There’s no need for any extra sugar, it just needs thinning down with some extra vinegar, as it’s very thick when bottled.

We all love and use mint sauce a lot – obviously it’s a match made in heaven when served with lamb, but we also love it on steamed carrots, new potatoes or most cooked vegetables.

It’s also wonderful with Yorkshire Salad aka Durham Salad or Mint Salad, which is a traditional recipe from Yorkshire and the North East of England, and Mushy Peas.

This recipe comes from an old farmhouse cookery book from the 1930’s, but I remember my maternal grandmother making this kind of “everlasting mint sauce” when I was little.

She’d have jars of it stored in her cottage pantry, along with numerous other pickles, chutneys, relishes and jams and jellies of course.

My grandparents lived on an old cottage in County Durham, next to a burn (a stream), hence the cottage’s name of “Burnside Cottage”.

Mint grew wild and freely in their cottage garden, along with rhubarb, gooseberries, apples, pears, plums and a riot of garden flowers – it was a truly magical place, and shaped my early childhood with many happy memories.

I hope you feel inspired to make this very simple, but fabulous preserved mint sauce, especially if you have garden full of mint, as I have! Karen

Notes:

• Recipe sent in to The Farmer’s Weekly paper by Miss E. Rutherford, of Northumberland.
• The original recipe called for just one teacup of mint – I found that it didn’t make a thick sauce with that amount, so I added an extra teacup, which works well.
• Can be made with cider apple vinegar and white wine vinegar, which gives a brighter colour than malt vinegar.
• The best mint to use in mint sauce is Spearmint.

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Everlasting Mint Sauce Recipe

Everlasting Mint Sauce

Yield:
10

Prep Time:
30 minutes

Total Time:
30 minutes

A “new” old vintage, country recipe for “Everlasting Mint Sauce”. This fabulous recipe is one I make every year with my garden mint, before it dies back in the winter.

I usually manage to make several jars, which last right through until the mint is back in late spring and early summer.

Once made, all you have to do when you serve the mint sauce (and, it’s not just for lamb), is to spoon some into a serving bowl, and add a little more vinegar to it.

There’s no need for any extra sugar, it just needs thinning down with some extra vinegar, as it’s very thick when bottled.

We all love and use mint sauce a lot – obviously it’s a match made in heaven when served with lamb, but we also love it on steamed carrots, new potatoes or most cooked vegetables.

It’s also wonderful with Yorkshire Salad aka Durham Salad or Mint Salad, which is a traditional recipe from Yorkshire and the North East of England.

This recipe comes from an old farmhouse cookery book from the 1930’s, but I remember my maternal grandmother making this kind of “everlasting mint sauce” when I was little.

She’d have jars of it stored in her cottage pantry, along with numerous other pickles, chutneys, relishes and jams and jellies of course.

My grandparents lived on an old cottage in County Durham, next to a burn (a stream), hence the cottage’s name of “Burnside Cottage”.

Mint grew wild and freely in their cottage garden, along with rhubarb, gooseberries, apples, pears, plums and a riot of garden flowers – it was a truly magical place, and shaped my early childhood with many happy memories.

I hope you feel inspired to make this very simple, but fabulous preserved mint sauce, especially if you have garden full of mint, as I have! Karen

Ingredients

• 2 x traditional tea cups of finely chopped fresh mint (approximately 5 floz/150ml to 7 floz/200ml)
• 1/2 pint (300ml) malt vinegar
• 8ozs (225g) white sugar (caster sugar is best)

Instructions

1. Boil the vinegar and sugar together in a saucepan until the sugar has dissolved.
2. Take the saucepan of the heat.
3. Add the chopped mint into the sugar and vinegar mixture.
4. Allow to go cold.
5. Then stir the mint sauce well, to distribute the mint and decant into clean (and sterilised) jars or bottles.
6. Seal and store in a cool place, but not a fridge.
7. When required to use, spoon some of the sauce out and add more vinegar, as the sauce should be quite thick when it is made.
8. This sauce will keep for a year.

Notes

Recipe sent in to The Farmer’s Weekly paper by Miss E. Rutherford, of Northumberland.

The original recipe called for just one teacup of mint – I found that it didn’t make a thick sauce with that amount, so I added an extra teacup, which works well.

Can be made with cider apple vinegar and white wine vinegar, which gives a brighter colour than malt vinegar.

The best mint to use in mint sauce is Spearmint.

Nutrition Information

Yield 10

Serving Size 1

Amount Per Serving

Calories 3Total Fat 0gSaturated Fat 0gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 0gCholesterol 0mgSodium 1mgCarbohydrates 1gFiber 0gSugar 0gProtein 0g