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Pineapple Vinegar

A fermented vinegar made by steeping sliced pineapples in cider vinegar, sweetening with sugar, and boiling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Pineapple Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Steep and strain

  1. Cover sliced pineapples with pure cider vinegar and let them stand for 3 to 4 days.

  2. Mash the mixture and strain it through a cloth until the liquid runs clear.

Sweeten and boil

  1. For every 3 quarts of juice, add 5 pounds of sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture for about 10 minutes, skimming carefully until nothing rises to the surface.

  3. Remove from heat and let it cool before bottling.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Pineapple + cidertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Pineapple + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together411 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

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

  5. Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sliced pineapples
Supplies the fruit flavor and the juice that becomes the base of the vinegar.
Pure cider vinegar
Provides the acidity that draws flavor out of the fruit and gives the vinegar its tang.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the finished vinegar.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture and skim carefully. Foam and impurities rise to the surface as the mixture heats. Skimming them off keeps the finished vinegar clear and stops off-flavors from settling into the bottles.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Pineapplethe original
  4. Pearfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, 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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