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 ↓
Cowslip Vinegar
Ingredients
Directions
Infuse
Place the cowslip flowers in a bottle.
Add the sweetbriar tips to each pint of vinegar.
Pour in the white wine vinegar.
Cover the bottle tightly and let it infuse for 10 days.
Strain and bottle
Strain the mixture and bottle it.
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).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cowslip flowers
- Provide the main floral aroma and flavour that the vinegar takes on during infusion.
- Sweetbriar tips
- Add a fresh, aromatic note that blends into the vinegar during infusion.
- White wine vinegar
- Acts as the solvent that extracts and carries the flower and herb flavours.
The step that matters
Cover the bottle tightly and let it infuse for 10 days. A tight seal keeps air and contaminants out while the vinegar slowly draws out aroma from the flowers. Too little time gives a weak flavour, so the full infusion period matters.
“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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