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Celery Vinegar

A vinegar infused with celery, made by steeping celery in vinegar with salt for a month.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Celery and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,627 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Celery Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the fresh celery into very small pieces.

  2. Place the celery in a fruit jar.

Infuse

  1. Pour scalding hot vinegar over the celery.

  2. Add the salt and cover tightly.

  3. Let it sit for one month.

Bottle

  1. Strain the vinegar and transfer it to small bottles.

  2. Cork the bottles tightly.

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. Celery + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,627 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery seed
Provides the concentrated celery aroma and flavor that defines the vinegar.
Fresh celery
Adds fresh, green celery flavor that deepens during steeping.
Vinegar
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavor from the celery and adds sharp acidity.

The step that matters

Pouring scalding hot vinegar over the celery. Heat helps the vinegar draw aroma and flavor out of the celery faster. The celery must be fully covered by the vinegar so that all pieces steep evenly.

“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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