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Garlic Vinegar

A vinegar infused with garlic, steeped for ten days.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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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

Prepare

  1. Peel and chop the garlic.

  2. Pour the chopped garlic into a quart of white wine vinegar.

Steep and bottle

  1. Seal the jar tightly and let it steep for ten days, shaking it well every day.

  2. After ten days, pour off the clear liquid into small 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. Garlic + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Wine + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Garlic + winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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 during steeping.
White-wine vinegar
Acts as the solvent that extracts garlic flavour and provides the sharp acidity.

The step that matters

Shaking the jar daily during steeping. Shaking keeps the chopped garlic in contact with the vinegar and spreads flavour compounds evenly through the liquid, so the infusion is consistent rather than stronger at the bottom or weak at the top.

Swap the garlic

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Garlicthe original
  3. Rosemaryfits about as well
  4. Peppermintfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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