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Spiced Vinegar

A vinegar infused with allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Tie the spices in a piece of muslin.

  2. Add the spice bag to the vinegar in a pan with a tight-fitting lid.

  3. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat.

Infuse and use

  1. Let it infuse for 2 hours.

  2. Lift out the spice bag and use the vinegar as needed.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Acts as the liquid that extracts flavour from the spices and carries their aroma.
Whole allspice
Supplies warm, aromatic flavour that infuses into the vinegar.
Cloves
Adds strong, aromatic warmth that infuses into the vinegar.
Cinnamon stick
Contributes sweet, woody aroma to the infused vinegar.
Whole mace
Adds delicate, aromatic warmth to the infused vinegar.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil, then remove from heat. Brief heating helps release aromatic compounds from the spices into the vinegar. Boiling too long can drive off volatile aromas and make the vinegar harsh, so stop once it boils.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, allspice, clove, cinnamon. 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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