BASICS
Flavoured oils are great for cooking, salad dressings & vinaigrettes, and make great gifts. They're easy to make too! Keep these things in mind...
* Use sterile bottles (boil them!)
* Making a lot is as easy as making a little. Invite a friend or two over and go for it!
* Save up any wine corks you can get, to use in bottling. If not, they are relatively easy to find. Here, they are sold in the grocery store and in wine-making (home-brewing) specialty stores.
* I found all kinds of bottles to look good when the labels are soaked off. There's no reason to buy bottles if you keep your eyes open in the kitchen (and the kitchens of others!)
*The oil will keep for at least three months on a shelf in a cool, dry, dark environment (I always use it up by then), probably much longer, as long as you keep it airtight.
HOW TO DO IT:
Decide on an oil. Peanut oil is a great base for stir-fry oils, since it can take the high temperatures. Olive oil is super for use on and in pasta and breads. Other specialty oils (walnut, almond, grapeseed, etc.) are kinda expensive, and since your goal is to flavor them anyway, it may not be worth it until you're pretty confident.
Whenever you want to add anything moist & fleshy (onion, garlic, peppers, etc.) you should acidify it first to prevent toxins from building up. Just drop it in a bunch of vinegar in the fridge for 12 to 24 hours, fish it out, and you're ready to go.
For the peppers, you can acidify fresh ones, but dried ones hold up better and don't require any special treatment. I like big red Anaheims. They flavor the oil quite well and look cool in the bottle.
Now is when you get creative. Decide what you want in your bottles. For stir-fry oils I like garlic, peppercorns, and peppers in peanut oil. For bread topping, pastas, and salads, I like a giant sprig of rosemary in olive oil or olive oil with garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, and Italian herbs.
Rinse and dry thoroughly all sprigs of herbs, etc. Put your items in the bottle. You want about 80% oil, and 20% flavoring ingredients. Try for big sprigs of herbs, they are prettiest. Just stick them into that bottle! Sometimes a chopstick or wooden spoon handle help.
Use a funnel to fill the bottle with oil, all the way into the neck. You don't want to leave much air between the oil and cork.
Cork the bottles, wash off any drips with hot soapy water, dry the bottle off, then dip the bottles upside-down into hot wax, about an inch past the cork. When cooled, dip again. (Be sure to use a double boiler for the wax!) You might want to embed ribbons for your gift tags in the wax when it's still wet, then tie the tags on later. (I haven’t used the ribbon-in-the-wax trick, because I find the wax hardens before I can embed a ribbon.) And don't forget to make fancy labels for the bottles!
** You can leave the herbs, etc. in the oil until it reaches the flavor you want and remove them, or leave the stuff in. It's prettiest when you leave it in. REMEMBER, though, that as your herbs are exposed to air, they will get yucky and fuzzy, so add more oil as you use it, or remove the herbs as they become exposed!! (A little note on the back of the bottle can instruct your friends of this.)
Another fun thing is to get together with a friend with a pasta machine, and make a bunch of dried pasta and oils and vinegars. Then you can each give some of them in gift baskets, and it's pretty special. I like to add a fun stuff to the basket, (maybe a candle or pasta server, loaf of fresh bread, and a bottle of wine.) It makes a very impressive and inexpensive wedding gift! I also made up a little booklet with all my vinaigrette recipes in it, to go along with a nice bottle of flavoured oil, or vinegar, or one of each! I also included my homepage address on the booklet for anybody who wants to reference my recipes and ideas on-line.
VINEGARS
Vinegars are fun, flavorful, and easy!! Because of the high acidity, you don't have to worry as much about making anybody sick!
Experiment with different vinegars - white, rice wine, apple cider, malt, etc.
You'll be surprised how good white vinegar can taste!
Throw some berries in the bottom of a bottle and fill it with vinegar. In a week you'll be ready to sprinkle it over a salad. If you like a sweeter salad topper, start with rice wine vinegar.
Keep a wine bottle in the fridge. Whenever you have a splash of wine left at the end of a bottle, pour it in the bottle in the fridge. Add some of it to white vinegars for a great flavor.
Go for the herbs, peppers, peppercorns, dried tomatoes, etc. in a red or white wine vinegar.
Sorry I didn't provide any measurements or recipes. There is no right and wrong in this. The truth is, you'll like it more if you experiment. So go for it, and have fun!!
Here are some more ideas gleaned from the Internet:
HERB OILS
Aromatic herbal oils are easy to make and taste great in salad dressings and marinades. Suitable herbs include basil, marjoram, oregano, thyme, rosemary, fennel, garlic, thyme, tarragon, and savory. Start with a good, mild flavored vegetable oil like extra virgin olive oil or sunflower oil. Bruise the herbs by crumbling them slightly, then add to a glass jar or bottle, filling loosely. Cover the top of the jar with a paper towel or thin but tightly woven cloth like muslin using a rubber band to secure. Set the whole thing in a sunny spot in your kitchen, shake daily, and after a week or two, strain out the herbs. Store oil in a clean sealed bottle. You can also make a quicker version of this by adding the herbs to your jar and covering with slightly heated oil. Store either variety in the refrigerator.
HERB VINEGARS
Just as easy as the oil. Combine the two for a great salad dressing. The best herb vinegars use wine vinegars as a base, but any vinegar will work. Red wine vinegars work better with strongly flavored herbs like basil, dill, fennel, parsley, garlic, and bay leaves. White wine vinegars are more delicate and work well with mild herbs like chives, marjoram, thyme, tarragon, and edible flowers. The most fun is to create your own preferred blend. Start with a quart of vinegar. Clean and dry 1/4 cup fresh herbs, loosely fill a glass bottle and pour in the vinegar. The quick version has you boil and simmer the concoction for a half hour, otherwise just cap it tightly and let it hang around for a month or two before straining and sealing in sterile decorative bottles. Add a handful of fresh leaves to prettify it if you want. To get real fancy, dip the top of the sealed bottle in hot paraffin flavored with cinnamon. The finished product is a mildly-flavored and beautiful addition to any kitchen or pantry.
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