Name: Tarragon Vinbgar for Salads
Ingredients: 1 quart fine cider vinegar; a bunch of tarragon leaves

Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Tarragon Vinbgar for Salads

Ingredients

1 quart fine cider vinegar
a bunch of tarragon leaves

Directions

Infuse

Place the tarragon leaves in a quart of fine cider vinegar in an earthen vessel.
Set the earthen vessel in another container filled with cold water.
Heat the setup until the vinegar boils.

Bottle

Once cooled, bottle and cork the vinegar.

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.

Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,431 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,547 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cider + tarragontop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together74 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Fine cider vinegar: Provides the acidic liquid base that dissolves and carries the tarragon's flavour and aroma.
Tarragon leaves: Release their aromatic oils into the vinegar, giving it the distinctive herbal flavour.