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Pepper Vinegar

A vinegar condiment made with red pepper pods, spices, mustard, and optional celery seed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Pepper Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove stems from the red pepper pods and cut them in half.

Make the vinegar

  1. Combine the peppers and vinegar in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture down to 1 quart.

  3. Strain through a sieve and bottle for use.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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

Red pepper pods
Supply the main pepper flavor and heat that infuse into the vinegar as it reduces.
Vinegar
Acts as the base liquid that extracts pepper flavor and provides sharpness and preservation.
Strong pepper pods
Add extra heat and pungency to the finished vinegar.

The step that matters

Boiling the mixture down to 1 quart. Reducing the vinegar concentrates both the pepper flavor and the acidity. Stopping too early leaves the vinegar weak and under-flavored, while reducing too far can make it harsh and intensely hot.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, vinegar, mustard, sugar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, mustard, 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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