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India Vinegar

A vinegar infused with peppercorns, mustard seed, salt, horseradish, nasturtium seeds, bay leaf, and mint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

India Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the vinegar

  1. In a large container, combine the white vinegar, peppercorns, mustard seed, salt, horseradish, nasturtium seeds, bay leaf, and mint.

  2. Stir the mixture frequently and let it stand for 5 days.

  3. After 5 days, strain the mixture and bottle it.

Use

  1. Use the vinegar for salads and cold meats.

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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Horseradish + minttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together45 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mustard + minttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together265 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

White vinegar
Provides the acidic base that carries and preserves the flavors of the other ingredients.
Horseradish
Contributes a sharp, pungent heat that infuses into the vinegar as it stands.
Mustard seed
Releases pungent flavor into the liquid during steeping, adding sharpness and depth.
Nasturtium seeds
Add a peppery, slightly pungent flavor to the infused vinegar.

The step that matters

Stirring and standing for 5 days. Stirring keeps the solids in contact with the vinegar so flavor extracts evenly, while the full standing time lets the acid draw out the pungent compounds from the horseradish and mustard seed.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, mustard, horseradish. 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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