Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Cherry Vinegar
Ingredients
Directions
Combine cherries and vinegar in a large container and let sit for 3 days.
Mash the mixture and strain it to extract the juice.
For every quart of juice, add ¾ pound of sugar.
Boil the mixture for 12 minutes.
Bottle the cherry vinegar.
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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Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 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
- Cherries
- Provide the fruit juice and flavor that the vinegar absorbs during the steeping.
- Vinegar
- Extracts flavor from the cherries and gives the finished drink its sharp acidity.
- Sugar
- Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.
The step that matters
Boil the mixture for 12 minutes. Boiling dissolves the sugar fully and stops fermentation, so the mixture keeps its sweetness and flavor when bottled.
“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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