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Ravigote Vinegar

A French vinegar condiment made with herbs, garlic, elder flowers, lemon zest, and wine spirits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 450 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Ravigote Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse

  1. Combine tarragon, pimpernel, chives, shallots, garlic, elder flowers, lemon zest, and bruised cloves in a jar.

  2. Pour 24 pints of strong white vinegar over the mixture.

  3. Let it sit for a month to develop flavor.

Finish and store

  1. After a month, add 2.5 ounces of spirits of wine to enhance the vinegar.

  2. Store in a cool, dark place for long-term preservation.

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. Chive + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Tarragon + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Tarragon + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together589 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tarragon + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Chive + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

White vinegar
Provides acidity and acts as the liquid that extracts flavor from the herbs and aromatics.
Tarragon leaves
Contributes the dish's characteristic aromatic, slightly anise-like flavor.
Shallots
Add mild onion-like sharpness and savory depth to the vinegar.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that softens and mellows during steeping.
Chives
Add a fresh, mild onion flavor and a green note.
Elder flowers
Add a delicate floral aroma to the finished vinegar.

The step that matters

Let the mixture steep for a full month. Aromatic compounds from the herbs and aromatics extract slowly into acidic vinegar. Cutting the steeping short leaves the flavor weak and unbalanced.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tarragon, chive, shallot, garlic, clove, vinegar, spirit):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Avocadofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against tarragon, chive, shallot, garlic, clove, vinegar, spirit. 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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