Name: Spiced Vinegar
Ingredients: 3 pints vinegar; 1 tablespoon mustard seeds; 1 tablespoon peppercorns; 1 ounce whole ginger; 8 cloves; 1 tablespoon red chillies; 1 ounce long green chillies

Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Tie the mustard seeds, peppercorns, ginger, cloves, red chillies, and green chillies in a piece of muslin.
Bring the vinegar to a boil.
Add the muslin bag of spices to the boiling vinegar and use as required.

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.

Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,829 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Mustard + gingertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,456 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,386 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar: Provides the acidic liquid base that carries the spice flavours and gives the finished condiment its sharpness.
Mustard seeds: Release pungent, sharp flavour into the hot vinegar as they steep.
Peppercorns: Add warm, pungent heat that infuses slowly into the liquid.
Whole ginger: Adds aromatic, warm spice that infuses into the vinegar.
Red chillies: Add heat and pungency to the infused vinegar.