Name: Cider, Horseradish, Etc.
Ingredients: 1 quart sour cider; 1 ounce bruised horseradish; 1 ounce bruised parsley root; ½ ounce bruised juniper berries; ½ ounce mustard seed; ½ ounce ginger

Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cider, Horseradish, Etc.

Ingredients

Directions

Combine sour cider, horseradish, parsley root, juniper berries, mustard seed, and ginger in a jar.
Let the mixture steep for several days.
Take ⅓ cup of the mixture three times a day.

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.

Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,832 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Horseradish + parsleytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together562 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,588 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Mustard + gingertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,456 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Parsley + gingertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together676 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, horseradish, parsley, mustard):

Capersfits better
Dillfits better
Tarragonfits better
Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, horseradish, parsley, mustard. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.