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Gooseberry Vinegar

A preserved vinegar made by steeping gooseberries with sugar, spirit, and wine vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Gooseberry Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Break down the gooseberries with a wooden pestle.

  2. Mix in the crushed cane sugar and let it stand for 2 hours.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a preserving pan and scald until the juice runs free.

  4. Strain the juice through a jelly bag wrung out in warm vinegar.

Finish the vinegar

  1. Add 1 quart of plain spirit or brandy to the juice.

  2. Mix in an equal quantity of best white wine vinegar.

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. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Spirit + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Spirit + white winetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + spirittop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together602 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

Gooseberries
Provide the fruit flavour and natural acidity that define the vinegar.
Crushed cane sugar
Draws juice out of the fruit and adds sweetness to balance the acidity.
Plain spirit or brandy
Adds alcohol that helps preserve the mixture and carries aroma.
White wine vinegar
Supplies the sharp acidity that gives the vinegar its tang and keeps it stable.

The step that matters

Scald until the juice runs free. Heating the softened fruit breaks down its cell walls so juice flows out fully. Under-scalding leaves less juice to strain, while overheating can cook off aroma and dull the fresh fruit 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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