Why it works: Garlic and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,115 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓
Garlic and Onion Vinegar
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Chop the garlic.
Put the chopped garlic in a bottle.
Pour the vinegar over the garlic.
Steep and bottle
Shake the bottle well every day for 10 days.
After 10 days, pour off the clear liquid into half-pint 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.
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Garlic + vinegartop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,115 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Garlic
- Supplies the pungent, aromatic flavor compounds that dissolve into the vinegar.
- Vinegar
- Acts as the solvent that extracts garlic flavor and adds a sharp acidic bite.
The step that matters
Shake the bottle well every day. Daily shaking keeps the garlic moving and in contact with fresh vinegar, so flavor extracts evenly over the full 10 days instead of pooling in one spot.
“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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