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Camp Vinegar

A flavored vinegar steeped with cayenne pepper, soy sauce, walnut catsup, anchovies, and garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Camp Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the vinegar

  1. Combine all ingredients in a bottle.

  2. Steep for one month, shaking the bottle frequently.

  3. Strain through a fine sieve.

Store

  1. Store in small, tightly corked bottles.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  3. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Vinegar + garlictop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Best vinegar
Provides the acidic base that extracts and preserves the flavours of the other ingredients.
Anchovies
Contribute a deep, salty, savoury umami flavour that dissolves into the vinegar during steeping.
Walnut catsup
Adds rich, dark, savoury depth and body to the vinegar.
Soy sauce
Adds salty, savoury umami flavour that complements the anchovies.
Cayenne pepper
Adds sharp heat that infuses into the vinegar over the steeping period.

The step that matters

Steep for one month, shaking frequently. Steeping gives the vinegar time to extract flavour from the anchovies, garlic and spices. Shaking helps distribute the solids so the flavour is evenly drawn out.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, pepper, sauce, clove, garlic):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, sauce, clove, garlic. 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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