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Tarragon Vinegar

A vinegar infused with tarragon leaves, made by steeping fresh tarragon in distilled or pale vinegar for at least two months.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,547 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Tarragon Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tarragon

  1. Gather tarragon just before it blossoms in late July or early August.

  2. Strip the leaves from the larger stalks and bruise them by twisting and wringing.

Infuse

  1. Place the tarragon in small stone jars or wide‑necked bottles.

  2. Pour in enough vinegar to cover the tarragon.

  3. Let it infuse for at least two months, or longer if desired.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the vinegar until clear and transfer it to small dry bottles.

  2. Cork the bottles well.

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 + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Tarragon
Supplies the aromatic oils that flavour the vinegar as it infuses.
Distilled or very pale vinegar
Acts as the solvent that draws tarragon flavour out of the leaves while staying neutral in colour.

The step that matters

Let it infuse for at least two months. Flavour compounds from the leaves move into the vinegar slowly, so a short infusion gives a weak, thin taste. Time lets the aromatics extract fully.

“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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