Why it works: Mint and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,376 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Mint Vinegar
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pick the leaves from the mint stalks.
Fill a bottle or jar with the mint leaves.
Add vinegar until the bottle is full.
Cover the bottle tightly to exclude air.
Infuse and bottle
Let it infuse for two weeks.
Strain the liquid and transfer it into small bottles.
Seal the corks of the bottles.
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.
-
Mint + vinegartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,376 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fresh mint leaves
- Supply the aroma and flavour that the vinegar draws out during infusion.
- Vinegar
- Acts as the solvent that extracts the mint's aromatic compounds and preserves the infused liquid.
The step that matters
Cover the bottle tightly to exclude air. Mint leaves exposed to air can oxidise and spoil, and a tight cover keeps the aromatic flavour contained in the vinegar during the long infusion.
“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.
You might also like
Raspberry Vinegar214 recipes
Sugar Vinegar20 recipes
Vegetable Soup350 recipes
Brown Coffee with Egg175 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.