Name: Celery Vinegar
Ingredients: an ounce of peppercorns; a large saltspoonful of salt

Celery Vinegar

Ingredients

an ounce of peppercorns
a large saltspoonful of salt

Directions

Make the infusion

Throw into a pint and a half of ready boiling vinegar a few grains of cayenne, or half an ounce of peppercorns, a large saltspoonful of salt, and a pint of the white part of the roots and stems of some fine fresh celery sliced up thin.
Let it boil for two or three minutes.

Store

Turn it into a stone jar, and secure it well from the air as soon as it is cold.
It may be strained off and bottled in three or four weeks, but may remain as many months in the jar without injury.

By Eliza Acton. 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

What each ingredient does

Celery (in the method): Provides the main celery flavor that the hot vinegar draws out of the sliced white roots and stems.
Vinegar (in the method): Acidic base that extracts flavor from the celery and keeps the finished liquid stable.
Peppercorns: Adds sharp, aromatic pungency that rounds out the celery flavor.

“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.