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Strawberry Vinegar, Oe Delicious Flavour

A vinegar infused with strawberries, sweetened and strained into a syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,776 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Strawberry Vinegar, Oe Delicious Flavour

Ingredients

Directions

Steep the strawberries

  1. Place the strawberries in a large glass jar or wide-necked bottle.

  2. Pour 1½ cups of wine vinegar over the strawberries.

  3. Cover the jar with thick paper.

  4. Let the mixture sit for 3 to 4 days.

Strain and renew

  1. Pour off the vinegar.

  2. Strain the liquid through a jelly bag or cloth.

  3. Replace the strawberries with an equal weight of fresh strawberries.

  4. Repeat the process after 3 days, using slightly fewer strawberries each time.

  5. After 2 to 4 days, drain the liquid.

  6. Strain the liquid through a linen or flannel bag.

Make the syrup

  1. Weigh the liquid.

  2. Mix the liquid with an equal quantity of sugar.

  3. Stir the mixture over low heat until the sugar is nearly dissolved.

  4. Boil the syrup for 5 minutes.

  5. Skim off any foam.

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

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

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  3. White wine + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,586 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Strawberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and colour that the vinegar draws out.
Wine vinegar
Extracts fruit flavour and gives the sharp acidity that defines the finished vinegar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the acidity of the vinegar in the final syrup.

The step that matters

Dissolve the sugar before boiling. Stirring over low heat until the sugar is nearly dissolved matters because undissolved sugar can recrystallise when the syrup boils, leaving it grainy instead of smooth and clear.

“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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