Name: Pepper Vinegar
Ingredients: 1 quart small peppers (green or ripe); 2 tablespoons sugar; vinegar to fill the bottle

Why it works: Pepper and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pepper Vinegar

Ingredients

1 quart small peppers (green or ripe)
2 tablespoons sugar
vinegar to fill the bottle

Directions

Fill a quart bottle or jar with small peppers.
Add 2 tablespoons of sugar.
Fill the bottle with vinegar.
Use as a seasoning for sauces or enjoy with fish or meat.

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.

Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,401 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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

Small peppers: Supply the pepper flavour and heat that infuse into the vinegar.
Vinegar: Acts as the sharp acidic base that draws out the peppers' flavour and keeps them preserved.
Sugar: Softens the sharp bite of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.

“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.