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Spring Vinegar of Herbs

A vinegar infused with herbs, garlic, shallots, onions, mustard seed, cloves, mace, long pepper, and lemon, steeped in sunlight.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 266 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Spring Vinegar of Herbs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Gather small herbs and dry them in the sun.

Steep

  1. Place dried herbs, garlic, shallots, onions, mustard seed, cloves, mace, long pepper, and lemon in a 6-quart jar.

  2. Fill the jar with vinegar and seal it tightly.

  3. Expose the jar to sunlight for 8 to 10 days.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture through a cotton or flannel bag.

  2. Bottle the vinegar and seal with cork and leather.

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. Chervil + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Chervil + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together207 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the herbs, aromatics and spices over time.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma that mellows and infuses into the vinegar during steeping.
Shallots
Add mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the infused vinegar.
Lemon
Adds bright citrus aroma and acidity from its rind and flesh.
Cloves
Provide warm, aromatic spice flavour that infuses into the vinegar.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chervil, clove, garlic, shallot, onion, mustard, pepper):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chervil, clove, garlic, shallot, onion, mustard, pepper. 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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