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To Prepare Vinegar for Green or Yellow Pickle

Vinegar prepared by steeping ginger, long pepper, mace, nutmegs, and other spices in vinegar for a year.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Randolph · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,800 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Prepare Vinegar for Green or Yellow Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spices

  1. Slice and dry one pound of ginger.

  2. Scrape and dry one pound of horse‑radish.

  3. Wash and dry one pound of mustard seed.

  4. Finely pound one ounce of long pepper, one ounce of mace, and one pound of nutmegs.

Steep the vinegar

  1. Put all these ingredients in a pot.

  2. Pour two gallons of strong vinegar into the pot.

  3. Let it stand for twelve months, stirring it very frequently.

Refresh and pour off

  1. When this vinegar is used for pickles, add two gallons more vinegar, some mace and nutmegs, and keep it for another year.

  2. When pouring the prepared vinegar from the ingredients, do it carefully so it may be clear.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

11Calories
0 gProtein
0 gFat
2 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Long Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Mary Randolph. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  2. Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Ginger + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ginger
Adds a sharp, aromatic warmth that flavours the vinegar.
Strong vinegar
Acts as the base liquid that extracts flavour from the spices and preserves the pickling liquid.
Mustard seed (in the method)
Contributes a pungent, sharp flavour to the infused vinegar.
Nutmegs (in the method)
Contributes warm, aromatic flavour to the vinegar.
Mace
Contributes warm, aromatic flavour to the vinegar.

The step that matters

Pouring off the clear vinegar. Pour slowly and carefully so the sediment of ground spices stays at the bottom. Disturbing it clouds the vinegar, which the record says should be clear.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, pepper, vinegar. 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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