Skip to main content
Drink

Spiced Vinegar, for Pickles Generally

A vinegar infused with pepper, ginger, allspice, sea salt, and optional cayenne or shallots, used for pickling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ginger and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Vinegar, for Pickles Generally

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spices

  1. Bruise the black pepper, ginger, allspice, and coarse sea salt in a mortar.

  2. If desired, add cayenne or capsicums for heat, and shallots for walnuts.

  3. Place the mixture in a stone jar and add the vinegar.

Steep

  1. Cover the jar with a bladder wetted with the pickle and a piece of leather.

  2. Set the jar on a trivet near the fire for three days.

  3. Shake the jar three times a day.

Use

  1. Pour the mixture over walnuts or other vegetables.

  2. Use the vinegar hot for walnuts.

  3. Use the vinegar cold for cabbage and other vegetables.

  4. Simmer the vinegar gently with the spices in an enameled saucepan.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Shallot + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Allspice + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Allspice + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 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

Black pepper
Provides sharp, pungent heat that flavours the vinegar.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic pungency to the infused vinegar.
Allspice
Contributes warm, sweet-spiced aroma to the vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture from the spices and seasons the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour and preserves the pickle.

The step that matters

Covering and steeping the jar. The jar must be sealed well and kept warm but not hot while the spices steep for three days. Vinegar extracts flavour slowly, and a loose cover lets it evaporate and lose strength or pick up contamination. Shaking spreads the spices so extraction is even.

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, ginger, allspice, walnut, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Shallotthe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, ginger, allspice, walnut, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesGinger PopGinger Pop22 recipesSugar VinegarSugar Vinegar20 recipesGinger WineGinger Wine12 recipes