Name: Horseradish
Ingredients: horse-radish; broth; seasoning; fresh butter

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

horse-radish
broth
seasoning
fresh butter

Directions

Make the soup

Place horse radish in a pot with broth and the necessary seasoning.
Bring to a boil and cook for 15 minutes.
Add a piece of fresh butter and stir until melted.

Serve

Serve in a sauceboat with bouilli.

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.

Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together529 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Radish + buttertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together180 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Horse + buttertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together143 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 soup.
Broth: Forms the liquid base that carries the flavours and cooks the horse-radish.
Fresh butter: Adds richness and a smooth, rounded texture when melted in at the end.

“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.