Skip to main content
Main

Horseradish

A preserved horse radish flavored with peppermint, cresses, tarragon, and elder flowers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and scrape the horse-radish well.

Bottle and seal

  1. Bottle the horse-radish, shaking it down in the bottles.

  2. Stop the bottles tightly.

Process

  1. Boil the bottles in a bain-marie for half an hour.

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. Peppermint + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together73 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Radish + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Radish + pepperminttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Horse + tarragontop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

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

What each ingredient does

Horse-radish
Provides the sharp, pungent flavour that defines the condiment.
Peppermint
Adds a cool, aromatic note that contrasts with horseradish heat.
Tarragon
Contributes a light anise-like aroma to the flavour.

The step that matters

Boil the bottles in a bain-marie for half an hour. Heating sealed bottles in water kills microbes that could spoil the condiment, helping it keep. Bottles must be sealed tightly first so the water does not get in and the contents stay protected during heating.

Swap the peppermint

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Peppermintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against horse, radish, tarragon. 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.

More horse radish recipes

Sauce 7 See all 2 →

You might also like

Horseradish SauceHorseradish Sauce23 recipesHorseradish ButterHorseradish Butter6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes