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Onion Vinegar

A pickled vinegar made by steeping onions in salted vinegar with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Onion Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel and chop the onions.

  2. Sprinkle the salt over the onions and let them stand overnight.

Infuse the vinegar

  1. Scald the vinegar with the sugar.

  2. Pour the hot vinegar over the onions and let them steep for two weeks, covered.

  3. Strain the mixture and bottle the vinegar.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 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
Supply the aromatic flavor that the vinegar extracts during steeping.
Vinegar
Acts as the base liquid and carries the onion flavor as it steeps.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the onions, softening them and concentrating their flavor.
White sugar
Adds a small amount of sweetness to balance the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Letting the onions stand overnight with the salt. Salt draws water out of the onion cells through osmosis, so the onions soften and release flavor. Skipping or shortening this time leaves them firmer and less flavorful in the finished vinegar.

Swap the onion

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

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