Name: Cider Vinegar
Ingredients: cider; rainwater; 1-2 pounds bread dough; 1-2 quarts molasses; beech shavings; brown paper; 1 pint molasses per gallon of cider; 1 cup lively soft yeast or 2 tablespoons Brookside yeast

Why it works: Cider and molasses work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 470 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cider Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Save the pomace from cider and place it in a barrel with enough rainwater to cover it.
Allow it to ferment, then draw off the liquid from the bottom and dilute the cider with it.
Add 1-2 pounds of bread dough to the barrel.
Once a day, draw out a gallon of cider and pour it back into the barrel to aerate.
For quick vinegar, mix 1 pint of molasses and 1 cup of yeast into each gallon of cider in a jug.
Keep the jug uncorked in a warm place behind the cook-stove.

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.

Cider + molassestop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together470 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cider + breadtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together120 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).
Bread + molassestop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together529 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).