Name: Camp Vinegar
Ingredients: 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper; 1 pint vinegar; 2 tablespoons soy sauce; 4 tablespoons walnut catsup; 6 anchovies, chopped finely; 1 clove garlic, minced

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Camp Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Combine cayenne pepper, vinegar, soy sauce, walnut catsup, anchovies, and garlic in a jar.
Seal the jar tightly and place it in the sun for two weeks, shaking it occasionally.
After two weeks, strain the mixture through a fine sieve.
Transfer the strained vinegar into small bottles and cork them tightly.

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.

Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,090 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,592 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,368 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Vinegar + garlictop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,115 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar: Acts as the base liquid and preserving medium that extracts flavor from the other ingredients.
Anchovies: Contribute savory depth and umami as they break down in the vinegar over time.
Soy sauce: Adds salty, savory depth that complements the anchovies.
Walnut catsup: Adds rich, sweet-savory flavor to the infused vinegar.

Swap the walnut

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

Chickpeafits better
Black-eyed peafits better
Sesamefits better
Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, sauce, clove, garlic. 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.