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Sauce

Horseradish Sauce with Apples

A sauce made from grated horse radish, apple sauce, and orange juice, reduced and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Horse and radish work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 529 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Horseradish Sauce with Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the horseradish

  1. Scrape and grate the horse-radish root, then chop it finely.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the apple sauce and horse-radish.

  2. Cook over medium heat until the sauce reduces to one-quarter of its original quantity.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into an earthen bowl.

  4. Add the juice of the orange and serve cold.

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.

  1. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Radish + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together51 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetal (cream, earthy).

  4. Radish + orangetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetal (cream, earthy).

  5. Horse + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together62 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Horse-radish root
Provides the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Apple sauce
Forms the base and adds moisture and mild sweetness to balance the heat.
Orange juice
Adds bright acidity that lifts and freshens the flavour.

The step that matters

Cook until reduced to one-quarter. Reducing concentrates the flavour and thickens the sauce. Stopping early leaves it thin and watery, while over-cooking dulls the sharp horseradish bite that gives the sauce its character.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (horse, radish, apple, sauce):

  1. Grapefits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against horse, radish, apple, sauce. 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.

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