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 ↓
Very Fine Raspberry Vinegar
Ingredients
Directions
Infuse the vinegar
Fill glass jars or large wide-necked bottles with raspberries and cover with vinegar.
Let infuse for 7 to 10 days, or drain after 4 to 5 days if needed.
Place the fruit in a sieve over a bowl to collect the juice, which will take several hours.
Replace the fruit in the bottles with fresh raspberries and pour the vinegar back over them.
Change the fruit again after 2 to 3 days and drain the vinegar.
Make the syrup
Strain the vinegar through a jelly bag or thick cloth and boil gently for 4 to 5 minutes with the sugar.
Remove any scum that rises during boiling.
Bottle the syrup the next day.
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.
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White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,776 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
White wine + sugartop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Raspberries
- Provide the main flavour and aroma, and their juice gives the syrup its colour and body.
- White wine vinegar
- Extracts the raspberry flavour during infusion and gives the finished syrup its sharp acidity.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and balances the sharpness of the vinegar, while helping preserve it.
The step that matters
Boiling the strained vinegar with the sugar. Boiling gently for only the stated 4 to 5 minutes dissolves the sugar and skims off scum without over-reducing the liquid. Boiling too hard or too long can darken and dull the fresh raspberry flavour.
“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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