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Camp Vinegar

A flavored vinegar made by steeping garlic, cayenne, soy sauce, walnut ketchup, anchovies, cochineal, and white wine vinegar for six weeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Camp Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the garlic slices in a wide-mouthed bottle.

  2. Add Cayenne pepper, soy sauce, walnut ketchup, chopped anchovies, cochineal, and white wine vinegar.

Steep and bottle

  1. Let it stand for 6 weeks, shaking frequently.

  2. Pour off the clear liquid and store it in small bottles, tightly sealed.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  3. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Garlic + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Garlic + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,044 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Garlic
Provides the main pungent flavour that infuses into the vinegar over weeks.
White wine vinegar
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the garlic and other ingredients.
Anchovies
Add savoury depth, umami richness, and saltiness to the finished condiment.
Soy sauce
Adds salty, savoury, umami notes that round out the vinegar.
Walnut ketchup
Contributes a dark, savoury, slightly sweet depth of flavour.

The step that matters

Shaking during the 6-week standing period. Regular shaking keeps the solids in contact with the liquid, so flavour is extracted evenly rather than only near the surface of the garlic.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, pepper, sauce, ketchup, white wine, 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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