Name: Pepper Vinegar
Ingredients: 1 quart small peppers, green or ripe; 2 tablespoons sugar; good vinegar

Why it works: Pepper and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pepper Vinegar

Ingredients

1 quart small peppers, green or ripe
2 tablespoons sugar
good vinegar

Directions

Fill a quart bottle with small peppers, then add 2 tablespoons of sugar.
Fill the bottle with good vinegar.
Use in fish or meat sauces.

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.

Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,401 recipes

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

Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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

Small peppers: Provide the main flavor and heat that the vinegar carries into the finished pepper vinegar.
Sugar: Softens the sharp bite of the vinegar, adding a gentle sweetness that balances the heat.
Vinegar: Acts as the liquid that steeps and preserves the peppers, drawing out their flavor.

“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.