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Celery Vinegar

A pickled celery vinegar made by boiling vinegar with salt, sugar, and celery, then aging for two weeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Celery Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the celery into small bits and place it in a jar.

Make the infusion

  1. Bring the vinegar to a boil.

  2. Add the salt and sugar to the boiling vinegar.

  3. Pour the hot vinegar over the celery in the jar.

  4. Let it cool, then close the jar and leave it unopened for two weeks.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the vinegar, bottle it, and cork tightly.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  2. Celery + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,627 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,794 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Provides the celery flavor that infuses into the vinegar over time.
Vinegar
Acts as the liquid base and carries the celery flavor, giving sharp acidity.
Celery seed
Adds a concentrated, warm celery aroma to the finished vinegar.

The step that matters

Leave the jar unopened for two weeks. The celery flavor needs time to diffuse into the vinegar. Opening the jar early lets aromatics escape and exposes the vinegar to air, so the flavor stays weaker.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar. 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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