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Cheap Vinegar

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Cheap Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Save all skimmings, currants, and pieces of fruit left after making jelly.

  2. Put them in a stone jar and cover with boiled soft water; let stand for several days.

  3. Boil apple peelings in a porcelain kettle and drain the liquid into another stone jar.

  4. Drain the first jar into the second and add any remnants of jelly or fruit syrups.

  5. If not sweet enough, add brown sugar or molasses.

  6. Pour the clear liquid into the vinegar keg and keep in a warm place.

  7. Allow air access but cover with a thin cloth to keep out dust.

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. Cider + appletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Cider + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Vinegar + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

Swap the currant

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Currantthe original

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

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