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Sauce

Winter Sauce

A sweet and sour sauce made from onions, brown sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,226 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Winter Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the onions finely.

  2. Combine the chopped onions with brown sugar in a bowl.

  3. Pour boiling vinegar over the mixture until covered.

  4. Bottle the sauce for winter use.

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. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Onion + sugartop 36% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,747 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Onion and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,747 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

Onions
Provide the bulk and savory base of the sauce, softening and mellowing as they sit.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses note that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Supplies acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the sauce.

The step that matters

Pour boiling vinegar over the mixture until covered. The onions must stay fully submerged so air cannot reach them. Acidic vinegar at a high enough strength inhibits spoilage microbes, so full coverage helps the sauce keep through winter.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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