Look... you don't need to follow rules. This is why we've always said "no recipe is right". 

For years we have pondered this concept, in fact, we figure this will be the name of our cookbook if we ever make one. Then a few months back we were listening to Marco Pierre and Anthony Bourdain and he said it perfectly "Cooking is a philosophy not a recipe, unless it's pastry and then it's chemistry!" That is it!

So then if cooking is a philosophy than it represents the fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, ethics, reason and mind.

Metaphysics: explores the nature of being

Epistemology: explores the nature of knowledge

Ethics: explores the nature of morality 

Logic: explores the nature of reason

Aesthetics: Explores the nature of art, beauty and taste

Thus to cook, one must practice critical thinking, methodology and reverence. To demonstrate this concept, let's talk about vinegar. 

Metaphysically, vinegar exhibits the art of being. It comes into this world through the natural process of fermentation. Man did not invent vinegar, nature did. With the right conditions, fruit is destined to ferment and oxidize - sweet to sour - alchemy. Now, man, with our epistemological thirst for knowledge, has studied this fermentation process. We learned that we can intervein and create the perfect conditions, to manipulate nature into a desired outcome.  Surely this applies to human life itself... ethically, it seems sound to follow the laws of nature. But what about the vinegar that is made synthetically? If it is no longer fit for human consumption, then we have entered a moral grey area. Would it make it okay if it says it is synthetic on the label? If we are aware, then it becomes our choice whether or not to consume? What if we don't know synthetic may be harmful? At what point do we loose morality with the manipulation of the nature process?  Maybe when we start editing our own genome? Integration with AI.. transhumanism?! 

Vinegar just got us deeply questioning our existence. The logical conclusion is that naturally fermented vinegar is a moral act of creation with nature. And last we have aesthetics, the beauty, the taste,  and the art of vinegar. Vinegar comes in many colors, flavors, textures, and scents. It can be made from wood all the way to guava. A red wine vinegar has a deep red color where as a natal plum is a beautiful bright pink. A balsamic is thick where a fruit vinegar is thin. It can be layered with infusions. It truly is a never ending rabbit hole of possibility. Aesthetic creativity. 

Okay... so we broke down the philosophy of vinegar itself, let's get into the cooking. Do I need a recipe to make a vinegar based sauce? Absolutely. Let me walk you down a thought path starting with the basic components of flavor. 

Vinegar Sauce Philosophy 

Stack and extract. Start simple. Understand that the salt, acid, sweet, heat and fat components are all interchangeable. 

Heat can come from a chili, garlic or a black peppercorn, etc. Acid can be an entire pantry of different vinegar or maybe just a fresh lemon. Salt can come from things like soy sauce or a simple sea salt. Sweet can be sugar, honey, molasses... even ketchup. Fat can be shredded coconut, nut butter or just a classic melted butter. 

Start with the vinegar, then add salt, fat, heat, and or sweet until you hit the profile that suites your tastebuds. You do not have to use all of them, maybe you just want sweet and sour or salty sour. Again, there is no single right way. 

A thought experiment 

I want to make chicken wings tonight and need a dipping sauce. I know I like it spicy, a little sour, I think the classic wing sauce has butter in it, and ya know what - I really like a honey mustard on the side. Okay, so what I know is that I need to choose a chili of some sort -- endless possibilities. Habaneros have a lot of flavor and spice where as a jalapeno is more mild and bright. I am going to choose habanero, but wait, I don't have any.. I only have serrano and Hawaiian chili. I will go with the Hawaiian chili in this case. This will save me a trip to the store, I already have them in the garden, this will totally work for the heat component.

For the sour part, obvi, its gonna be vinegar. But which vinegar?! Most wing sauces use white distilled or malt, but I don't want to eat white vinegar (it is the synthetic stuff mentioned earlier and we use it for laundry). So what other options do I have? I want to use my Sour Flower Chocolate Mango Vinegar, but I only have the SFV White Pineapple Banana and ACV. Hmmmm, well my White Pineapple Banana is precious to me and the flavor might get lost in the heat so perhaps I will save that for more subtle applications and go with the ACV. So now I have Hawaiian chili and ACV. I mentioned honey mustard but don't have the time to soak mustard seeds and mustard is vinegar based anyway. Perhaps I will just add honey to my main sauce! Wa-lah!! Vinegar + honey is going to hit that sweet and sour flavor I was seeking out of the honey mustard.

Great, so now I have chili, vinegar and honey. I recall the classic wing sauce has the butter, but ya know what, I want to keep it low fat tonight so I am going to skip the butter. I know for sure I want to eat a treat after dinner and skipping the butter is in my best interest for tonight's meal, just thinking ahead a bit. 

Now that I have my 3 ingredients, didn't have to go to the store, used logical reasoning, its time to assemble. But how?!!? OMG I wasn't told ratios... what do I do?! It is time to get aesthetical and epistemological. I can use my taste and knowledge of the ingredients to compile a ratio that is custom to me.

Stack and extract. Add the vinegar to a bowl then the honey. Find the right balance of sweet and sour - more vinegar if you like it sour, more honey if you like it sweet. My first layer is perfectly balanced, but oooof, I noticed something... it is missing salt! Okay, easy, i will add salt until it hits the perfect salinity. I remember to consider whether or not the chicken wings are salted, because over salting can be detrimental... but not really, because if I add too much salt then I can just add more vinegar and honey until I get back to the balanced base.

AWESOME, the base is complete. Now, how to add the chili? I have a couple options, I could chop them up or blend them. Maybe I start with chopping and then realize that wont dip very well on a chicken wing. Cool, I'll just pulse this through the Vitamix. BAM- I made a sauce, but more than I needed because of all the adjustments. All good, Ill save it in this cute little bottle and use it on my eggs. 

There was no recipe, only philosophy. I started with the concept of a typical wing sauce and created something custom to the ingredients I had and the flavor profile I like. Easy!