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Fines Herbes Vinegar

A vinegar infused with tarragon, garden‑cress, marjoram, garlic, capsicum, and shallot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Fines Herbes Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the tarragon vinegar with the minced garden-cress and marjoram in a bowl.

  2. Add the clove of garlic, sliced capsicums, and minced shallot.

  3. Mix well and let it sit for a few hours to infuse the flavors.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Tarragon + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together148 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Marjoram + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Marjoram + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together287 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Tarragon vinegar
Acidic liquid base that extracts and carries the herb and aromatic flavours.
Garden-cress
Adds a fresh, peppery aroma to the vinegar.
Marjoram
Adds a warm, sweet herbal aroma.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows during infusion.
Shallot
Adds a mild, savoury onion-like aroma.

The step that matters

Letting it infuse. Flavour comes from the vinegar slowly drawing out aromatic compounds from the herbs, garlic and shallot. Skipping or shortening the rest leaves the infusion weak and the aromatics harsh or uneven.

Swap the garlic

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tarragon, vinegar, marjoram, clove, capsicum, shallot. 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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