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Vinegar, Seasoned, for Salads

A vinegar infused with dried herbs for use in salads.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 450 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Vinegar, Seasoned, for Salads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dry the shallots, tarragon, savory, chives, balm, and mint carefully and bruise them.

  2. Place the herbs in a wide-mouthed bottle and pour in the vinegar. Cork the bottle securely.

Infuse

  1. Store the bottle in a warm place for 2-3 weeks, until the vinegar is strongly flavored.

Strain and bottle

  1. Pour off the liquid. Press the herbs dry with a wooden spoon.

  2. Let the vinegar settle for a few hours, then filter it into small bottles.

  3. Cork the bottles tightly and store them for 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. Shallot + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Tarragon + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together589 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Tarragon + minttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Shallots
Adds a mild onion-like savoury flavour to the vinegar.
Tarragon
Contributes its distinctive aniseed aroma, the main flavour of the vinegar.
Savory
Adds a peppery, herbal aroma that rounds out the blend.
Chives
Adds a fresh, delicate onion note to the infused vinegar.
Balm
Adds a light, lemony aroma to the vinegar.
Mint
Adds cooling, fresh aromatic notes to the vinegar.

The step that matters

Judging the infusion time. Flavour is extracted from the herbs into the vinegar over time, and the vinegar must be poured off once it is strongly flavoured. Leaving herbs too long can make the vinegar taste bitter or muddy, while stopping too early leaves it weak. Bruising the herbs first helps release their aromatic oils into the acid.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, tarragon, chive, 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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