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 ↓
Raspberry Shrub
Ingredients
Directions
Infuse the vinegar
Gather ripe raspberries and pick them without washing.
Bruise the raspberries and place them in a jar.
Pour enough vinegar over the raspberries to cover them.
Cover the jar and let it steep for several days.
Strain the mixture through a cloth, pressing to extract all the juice.
Pour the juice over a fresh supply of raspberries and let it stand for several days.
Sweeten and bottle
Boil the mixture, then strain the liquid through a cloth and let it cool.
Mix ½ pound of white sugar into each quart of liquid until dissolved.
Bottle the mixture and seal.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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
- Ripe raspberries
- Supply the main fruit flavour and colour for the syrup.
- Good vinegar
- Extracts flavour from the fruit and provides the tart acidity that balances sweetness.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the liquid and balances the vinegar's sharpness, while helping preserve the finished syrup.
The step that matters
Straining the juice through a cloth while pressing. Pressing extracts the most juice from the softened fruit, but pressing too hard can push pulp and seeds through and cloud the liquid. Gentle, thorough pressing gives a clearer, more flavourful base for the shrub.
“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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