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Onion Vinegar

A vinegar-based condiment made by pickling onions with salt, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,226 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Onion Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Grate the onions.

  2. Mix the grated onions with salt and sugar.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 2 hours.

Steep in vinegar

  1. Add the vinegar to the mixture.

  2. Transfer to bottles and shake every day for 2 weeks.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain through a fine cloth, then bottle, cork, and seal.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + oniontop 36% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,747 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,747 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Large onions
Supply the main flavor, with a sharp aroma that infuses into the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity and forms the liquid that carries the onion flavor.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Shaking the bottles daily for 2 weeks. Shaking spreads the onion flavor evenly through the vinegar, and the flavor builds slowly as the onion steeps. Skipping days or rushing the steep leaves the vinegar weak and unevenly flavored.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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