Name: Spiced Vinegar
Ingredients: 1 cup vinegar; a dash of celery salt; ½ teaspoon cinnamon; ½ teaspoon cloves; ½ teaspoon paprika; 3 tablespoons sugar; 4 teaspoons dry mustard; a dash of cayenne pepper

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the spiced vinegar

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan.
Boil for 2 minutes.
Strain through a double cloth.

Store

Store in a bottle in the refrigerator for later use.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,668 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar: Provides the sharp acidity that carries the spice flavours.
Sugar: Sweetness balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Dry mustard: Adds pungent, sharp flavour that deepens the vinegar.
Cloves: Contributes warm, aromatic flavour to the vinegar.
Cinnamon: Adds warm, sweet aroma to the vinegar.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, cinnamon, clove, sugar, mustard, pepper):

Allspicefits better
Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, cinnamon, clove, sugar, mustard, pepper. 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.