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Drink

Spiced Vinegar

A vinegar infused with sugar and a blend of spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spices

  1. Cut the ginger into very small pieces.

  2. Mix all the spices together and place them in bags made of strong, thin muslin.

Steep

  1. Lay the spice bags in a 3-gallon crock and fill it with good vinegar.

  2. Keep the crock lightly covered.

Use and store

  1. Use the spiced vinegar for pickles, salads, and sauces.

  2. If desired, transfer to quart or smaller bottles and seal.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Good vinegar
Carries the spice flavours and its acidity gives the liquid a sharp, preserving tang.
Sugar
Sweetens and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard seed
Adds a pungent, sharp flavour as it steeps into the vinegar.
Turmeric
Gives the vinegar a yellow colour and an earthy, bitter note.
White ginger
Adds warm, aromatic spice that infuses into the vinegar.

The step that matters

Cutting the ginger very small. Finer pieces expose more surface area, so more of the aromatic oils and flavour compounds dissolve into the vinegar during steeping.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, mustard, pepper, ginger, clove, turmeric, allspice):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, mustard, pepper, ginger, clove, turmeric, allspice. 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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