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Sauce

Axotubr Saucb for Roast Beef

A sauce made from soy sauce, vinegar, water, horseradish and sliced onions, simmered in a sealed jar and served with roast beef.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,784 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Axotubr Saucb for Roast Beef

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine soy sauce, vinegar, water, horseradish, and onions in a stone jar.

  2. Cover the jar tightly.

  3. Place the jar in a pan of cold water.

  4. Bring the water to a boil.

  5. Let it simmer for 2 to 3 hours.

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. Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sauce + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together775 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Sauce + oniontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,474 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Soy sauce
Provides salt and savory depth that forms the base flavor of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the soy sauce.
Horseradish
Supplies the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Onions
Release sweetness and aroma into the liquid during the long gentle simmer.

The step that matters

Keeping the jar tightly covered during the simmer. A tight lid traps steam and volatile aromatics so the horseradish flavor stays in the sauce rather than evaporating, and it keeps the water bath from entering the jar.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, vinegar, horseradish):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, vinegar, horseradish. 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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