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 Vinegar
Ingredients
Directions
Place the garlic pieces in a jar.
Pour the boiling vinegar over the garlic and cover the jar tightly.
Boil the vinegar again the next day and pour it back into the jar.
Let the garlic sit in the vinegar for two weeks.
After two weeks, filter the vinegar.
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 aroma and flavour that infuse into the vinegar over two weeks.
- Vinegar
- Acts as the solvent that extracts garlic's flavour compounds and adds sharp acidity.
The step that matters
Boil the vinegar again the next day and pour it back into the jar. Reheating the vinegar helps kill microbes that could spoil the garlic during the long soak. Keeping the jar tightly covered during the infusion limits contamination and keeps the aroma from escaping.
“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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