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Celery Vinegar for Flavorings

A preserved celery and vinegar mixture used as a flavoring.

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

Celery Vinegar for Flavorings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the infusion

  1. Place the chopped celery in a jar.

  2. Heat the vinegar, brown sugar, and salt until boiling.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the celery.

  4. Let it cool, then cover tightly and set aside.

Strain and bottle

  1. After two weeks, strain and bottle the mixture.

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

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

  3. Celery + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,627 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Celery + cidertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together662 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Cider + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh celery
Supplies the main celery flavor and aroma as it steeps in the vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that carries the celery flavor and keeps the mixture tart.
Brown sugar
Adds a little sweetness that rounds out the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Let it cool, then cover tightly and set aside. The long rest lets the celery's aromatic compounds slowly dissolve into the vinegar, so the flavor develops over time. A tight cover keeps the aroma in and limits evaporation, so the vinegar stays concentrated and the flavor does not fade.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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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