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Tarragon Vinegar

A vinegar infused with tarragon, savory, chives, shallots, mint, and balm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 450 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Tarragon Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse

  1. Dry and pound the tarragon, savory, chives, shallots, mint, and balm.

  2. Put the herbs into a wide-mouthed bottle with 1 gallon of vinegar.

  3. Cork the bottle tightly and place it in the sun for two weeks.

Strain and clarify

  1. After two weeks, strain the mixture.

  2. Squeeze the herbs.

  3. Let it sit for a day to settle.

  4. Strain it through a filtering bag.

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. Chive + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Tarragon + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Tarragon + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together589 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Tarragon + minttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Tarragon leaves
Provides the main aroma and flavour that defines the vinegar.
Savory
Adds a peppery, herbal aroma that rounds out the tarragon.
Chives
Contributes a mild onion-like aroma and fresh flavour.
Shallots
Adds a gentle savoury, onion-like sweetness to the infusion.
Best vinegar
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the herbs and provides the acidity.

The step that matters

Keeping the bottle tightly corked in the sun. A tight cork keeps air and contaminants out while the herbs steep, so the vinegar infuses cleanly instead of spoiling. Steady sun warms the liquid and speeds flavour extraction, so the two weeks should not be cut short.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tarragon, chive, shallot, vinegar):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tarragon, chive, shallot, 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.

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