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Spiced Vinegar

A vinegar infused with spices, used for pickling cucumbers and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Mix cucumbers and onions, sprinkling alternate layers with ¾ cup coarse sea salt.

  2. Let stand overnight.

  3. Soak peppers in brine overnight.

  4. Drain vegetables.

  5. Rinse vegetables in clear water for 1 to 2 hours.

  6. Drain vegetables well.

Make the spiced vinegar

  1. Place whole spices in a cheesecloth bag, adding celery seed and mustard seed loose.

  2. Add spices to vinegar and boil for 5 minutes.

Pack and process

  1. Pour hot spiced vinegar over the vegetables.

  2. Let stand for 24 hours.

  3. Pack vegetables in jars, distributing pepper evenly and flattening cucumber slices against the jar sides.

  4. Fill jars with the same vinegar and tap to remove bubbles.

  5. Garnish with strips of red pepper or pieces of spice.

  6. Process 12-ounce or pint jars for 15 minutes at 180°F.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Cucumbers
Form the crisp, firm pickled vegetable that the vinegar brine penetrates and flavors.
Onions
Add pungency and sweetness that mellow during brining and pickling.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the vegetables and gives the pickle its sour bite.
Sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar and rounds out the spiced flavor.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the cucumbers and onions, firming them before pickling.

The step that matters

Salting and rinsing the vegetables. Salt draws moisture out of the cucumbers and onions, which firms their texture. Rinsing afterward removes excess salt so the pickles are not overly salty. Skipping or shortening this step can leave the vegetables soft or too salty.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, ginger, mustard, pepper, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, ginger, mustard, pepper, clove, cinnamon. 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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