Name: Raspberry Vinegar
Ingredients: 2 cups fresh raspberries; 2 cups vinegar; 1 pound white sugar

Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Raspberry Vinegar

Ingredients

2 cups fresh raspberries
2 cups vinegar
1 pound white sugar

Directions

Infuse the raspberries

Combine the raspberries and vinegar in a bowl and let them sit for 48 hours.
Strain the mixture through a sieve to extract the juice.

Cook and bottle

Add 1 pound of sugar to the juice and boil for 30 minutes.
Bottle the vinegar once cooled.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Raspberries: Supply the fruit flavor and color that the vinegar draws out during steeping.
Vinegar: Provides acidity and extracts the raspberry flavor during the 48-hour steep.
White sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar.

“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.