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Pepper Vinegar

A spicy vinegar made by boiling red pepper pods with vinegar, water, horseradish, onions, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pepper Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peppers

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

  2. Combine the peppers and vinegar in a pot and boil down to 1 quart.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sieve and set aside.

Make the sauce

  1. In another pot, combine the bell peppers, vinegar, water, horseradish, and chopped onions.

  2. Boil until soft, then rub through a sieve.

  3. Season with salt, spices, black and white mustard, and optional celery seed and strong pepper.

  4. Add a little sugar if desired and boil for 10 minutes.

  5. Bottle and cork tightly for storage.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Horseradish + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together835 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Red pepper pods
Provide the main pepper flavor and the body of the sauce once cooked and strained.
Vinegar
Acts as the main liquid, extracting pepper flavor and providing sharp acidity that preserves the sauce.
Horseradish
Adds a pungent, sharp aroma and heat that mellows during boiling.
Onions
Break down when boiled soft and add savory sweetness and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Rubbing the cooked mixture through a sieve. Boiling until fully soft is needed so the solids pass through the sieve smoothly. Undercooked pieces stay coarse and leave the sauce grainy and uneven in texture.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, horseradish, onion, 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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