Yes.
this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2025
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I dip salt and vinegar chips in vinegar. I’m a freak.
That sounds amazing! What type of vinegar do you recommend?
Rice vinegar makes a great condiment. It's much sweeter and less pungent than most other vinegars. If you're making a sandwich right, it's half salad. Dress those greens with some rice vinegar!
Slice up some cucumber, some onion, dress it in rice vinegar and stick it in the fridge overnight. Great on salad, on toast, anything really. I've even diced it up good into a relish and put it(cold) on pizza.
I buy "double strength" vinegar for my chips and things. The vapours, when it hits my hot food, make me cough because its so strong but I love it. It also burns/damages my tongue, but again I love ir
Vinegar is love, vinegar is life, you ain't my homie if you're not vinegar's homie
Yeah I really like balsamic vinegar, but white vinegar I'm not a fan of.
I don’t see a mention of this form of drinkin’ vinegar, but I love me some shrub. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrub_(drink)
Pickles, salt and vinegar chips, fish and chips with malt vinegar, Chinese hot and sour soup, rustic Italian bread with EVOO and balsamic vinegar, chicken adobo, sinigang, chicharron dipped in spicy sukang, and the list goes on if you want to live a more substantial life with vinegar
Pop some Tums dipped in Tabasco if your body attempts to digest itself inside out
Here's a trick you can use to fool people into thinking you can cook:
Fry a chicken breast. Ideally, sauté, which just means: get a few tablespoons of canola oil in the pan almost smoking hot, dry the breast with paper towels - like, super dry - then fry the breasts a few minutes on each side. Put a little salt and pepper on the uncooked side as you're frying it. Flip it only once, fry the other side. It'll get that crispy brown coating.
When both sides are done, take it out, lower the temp of the pan to about medium, then dump a half-bottle of balsamic vinegar on there. I'm not joking - pour that shit in, a half bottle. Add some more salt & pepper - not too much! - tarragon, it you have it, and just boil it, stirring frequently. Scrape the bottom of the pan while you're doing it; make sure you scrape up any bits of chicken. Keep boiling that stuff. It'll boil down to less than half - when you can dip a spoon in curved-side down and lift it up and the sauce coats the spoon (doesn't just run off), take it off the heat immediately.
It'll be thick, and you'll get maybe a quarter cup reduced from the cup you dumped in. It'll thicken further as it cools. Let it cool, just a little, then drizzle that over the chicken.
Most of the acidity will be gone, and it'll be a sweet syrup, and it's fantastic.
But here's the real magic: you can deglaze a pan and reduce almost anything that has sugars on it. Amaretto Chicken isn't chicken cooked in amaretto: it's chicken, with an amaretto reduction made exactly like I described for the balsamic above. Basically; I know the chefs are going to come out of the woodwork, but honestly. Try it with Grand Marnier liquor for an orange twist.
Wine needs more work, and white or red vinegar won't do - there aren't enough sugars for a reduction, but any liquor will do. Balsamic is my favorite.
One final trick: the balsamic reduction is best with tuna steaks. With those, you want them to hit the pan, sit for maybe 15 seconds, flip, 15s, and done. Pink in the middle with brown sides.
The most important things about all this are: high heat, and very dry meat. Get that stuff as dry as you can, with paper towels, or hand towels if you like washing clothes. It's the water on the surface of what you're cooking that causes oil to splatter, and everything works better when the meat, or tofu, is as dry as you can make it.
Final word: cast iron skillet.
Lol that's not a trick - you're describing cooking.
Sshhh.
Thing is, nobody explains how easy these things are to do. Deglazing a pan. Making a reduction. Sauté-ing. They sound fancy, but they're really, really simple; and sauté is so often misdescribed in recipes it's become a pet peeve of mine. When I read instructions like, "sauté on medium heat" it drives me nuts. Sauté isn't just a fancy word for frying. High heat, short cook time: it's the definition!
Although my post went on a bit long, I was mostly saying that adding a little salt, pepper, and an herb to a lot of a high-suger liquid like balsamic vinegar, or Amaretto, or Cointreau, and boiling it down makes a wonderful sauce; and it's easy to do.
I see recipes with 30 ingredients and 20 steps, and sometimes that's needed, but usually not. My favorite bread recipe is "combine all ingredients in a mixer, mix for 5 minutes." It doesn't have to be more complex than that.
The best description of good food I've ever heard is: "quality ingredients, prepared simply."
I wish someone had shown me when I was in my 20's how simple some of these things are to do, hidden behind fancy names and complex recipes. A handful of easy techniques can produce a large variety of dishes just by changing ingredients, and I think that is a trick.
Ohh man, don't know what it's called but we make a dip we call Italian bread dip. Use whatever dried spices you want (garlic/onion powder, oregano, basil, thyme, red pepper flakes, etc.) mix in olive oil and basalmic vinegar (I do it by eye and taste but usually around a 2:1 oil: vinegar), mix then rip off fresh crush bread dip and eat. I have to add more vinegar becuase my family loves the tangy flavor.
Something not a lot of people are talking about is why the different vinegars are so different.
Vinegar has similar properties to alcohol. My understanding is that they're made similarly. For example, white vinegar is basically like grain alcohol. It's... Unpleasant.
Balsamic though? Similar to wine. Pretty great, and so many variations
Malt vinegar? Beer. Pretty tasty.
Same deal with apple cider and rice vinegars
But yeah, plain white vinegar is not great
If you like Asian food, vinegar is a staple ingredient and condiment. You probably don't notice that some food you eat uses vinegar.
Salt & Vinegar chips are amazing
I'm also a big fan of these
I didn’t like them the first time I tried them, but they are awesome!
Roger that!
On its own? Absolutely not. But the right amount to balance flavor? Absolutely.
I actually like vinegar by itself but it’s too potent to just drink it straight. Instead I’ll get a bunch of green onions and let them soak in the vinegar, then I suck the vinegar out of the green onions and enjoy the onion itself as a crunchy snack after.
Vinegar with a side of fried potatoes? Absolutely
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I love acidic foods. It's essential for cutting through the fatty richness of some dishes. Bacon's nice but bacon with tomato is amazing. Ham and cheese on bread are dece but it's not really a sandwich without mustard. Most soups are better with a squeeze of citrus. And so on, and so on.
Vinegar is another kind of acid, or really two kinds: Fermented vinegar is very different from distilled vinegar. Most people like fermented vinegar in moderation, and some (including me) like it even out of moderation. I will soak good bread in balsamic and eat it strait, for example. I barely put oil on my salads, it's mostly vinegar.
Distilled vinegar is the kind you clean with, but you can eat it, too. I think maybe overfamiliarity with it as a cleaning product may dampem some people's desire to consume vinegar; I myself never used it for cleaning growing up, except small amounts to treat laundry.
Love it. Quite apart from the subline perfection of vinegar on fish and chips, I love a good vinaigrette salad dressing. I could drink that. And salt and vinegar crisps are top tier (although Walkers^1^ Pickled Onion are even sharper). I also like pickles of almost all sorts.
1 Walkers are, of course, deeply suspect. Salt and Vinegar should be in a blue packet, not a green packet!
Vinegar, lemon juice and other acids bring a sour flavor to a dish that when combined with other flavors can add a brightness to it.
I love it. And there are so many kinds! I keep a bunch on hand for different things: red wine, white, rice wine, apple cider, balsamic, malt, etc… they all taste quite different.
I recently bought a dark barrel aged balsamic vinegar from a locally owned store. It's pretty sweet and a little tangy.
Basically, go try out some different vinegars. There's tons out there
Your loss.
German potato salad is vinegar based. Delicious.
South German.
Bavarian, yes. Good distinction.
The Swabians commit the same culinary crime. Thats why I said southern Germany. It is not just Bavaria.
TIL. Thanks.
I will only eat my pot stickers with balsamic vinegar and after I finish all the dumplings I have been known the drink the remaining oily vinegar that's left over.
I fucking love vinegar.
There are lots of different types of vinegar with different flavors and acidities. I frequently use malt vinegar, rice wine vinegar and balsamic vinegar when I cook and even as a condiment
I don't see how it's any different than using lemon or lime juice 🤷♂️
It's probably the best flavor we have
I love vinegar, when I was a kid id drink it straight. And I love salt and vinegar chips.
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I drink swizzle from time to time so yeah
White vinegar and French fries are the best, but malt vinegar can go to hell
I love vinegar. It's nice having working tastebuds.
Mm pickles :3
Do you like other acidic flavours? Lemon juice? Citric acid?
yeah I do. All for lemon juice to up the acidity of things but really not a fan of vinegar.
Yes, I thoroughly enjoy vinegar.
Sekanjabin is an Iranian drink made of honey and vinegar, usually served in summer. It is sometimes seasoned with mint.
Delicious stuff. Vinegar drinks have been popular the world over since ancient times.
Malt vinegar is the best condiment for fish and chips. Or sometimes just chips. Hell, ketchup is basically vinegar, tomato paste and sugar.
Balsamic is wonderful for salads, and if you're trying to reduce calories/carbs it's the clear choice for salad dressing.
White vinegar is for cleaning. I don't know what you do with the rest, but I imagine make delicious foods.
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Live vinegar is the one I like. But also - I've developed more tolerance for sour foods over time, your palate may adjust.
Try a "shrub" - use a little vinegar and some mashed berries and a little sugar to flavor cold water, sort of like making a lemonade but with vinegar and see if you like that; and also try a balsamic reduction.
I can't imagine anyone likes straight up plain white vinegar on its own, and sometimes those vinaigrette dressings are way too sour, but vinegar can be such a good adjuster and flavoring.
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