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To Make Shalot Vinegar

A vinegar infused with shallots and horseradish, used for salads, meats, soups, and gravies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Horse and radish work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 529 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

To Make Shalot Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the vinegar

  1. Combine shallots, horseradish, and vinegar in a bottle.

  2. Cork the bottle tightly and let it sit for 10 days, shaking it often.

Strain and use

  1. After 10 days, strain and bottle the vinegar for use.

  2. Use it in salads, with cold mutton or beef, or to flavor soups and gravies.

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. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Radish + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together508 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Horse + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together331 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Radish + white winetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Shallots (in the method)
Contribute mild onion-like pungency and aroma that infuse into the vinegar over time.
Horseradish (in the method)
Releases sharp, pungent flavor compounds into the vinegar, adding heat and aroma.
White wine vinegar
Acts as the solvent and acidic base that extracts and carries the shallot and horseradish flavors.

The step that matters

Cork the bottle tightly and let it sit for 10 days. Steeping needs a sealed vessel so the vinegar does not evaporate or spoil, and regular shaking spreads the flavors evenly. Stopping early leaves the infusion weak and unevenly flavored.

Swap the radish

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

  1. Radishthe original
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits less well
  4. Cucumberfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against horse, 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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