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Camp Vinegar

A vinegar infused with cayenne pepper, shallot, cochineal, soy sauce, and ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Camp Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine cayenne pepper, chopped shallot, cochineal, soy sauce, and ketchup in a jar.

  2. Pour in the vinegar and stir well.

  3. Seal the jar and let it infuse for one month.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shallot + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Cayenne pepper
Provides the heat and sharp pepper flavour that the vinegar carries.
Vinegar
Acts as the solvent that draws flavour from the other ingredients and adds sharp acidity.
Shallot
Adds a mild, savoury onion aroma and background depth.
Cochineal
Supplies the red colour.
Soy sauce
Adds savoury depth and salty umami.
Ketchup
Adds a little sweetness and body that balances the acidity.

The step that matters

Seal the jar and let it infuse for one month. Flavour compounds from the solids move into the vinegar slowly over time. A sealed jar keeps the aromas in and the vinegar's acid steadily extracts flavour, so rushing the infusion leaves the result weak and unbalanced.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sauce, ketchup, 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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