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Sauce

Swedish Sauce

A creamy sauce made with whipped cream, mayonnaise, mustard, horseradish, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish 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 ↓

Swedish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Whip the cream until it forms stiff peaks.

  2. Add the mayonnaise and mustard, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the grated horseradish, salt, and pepper.

  4. Chill on ice until ready to serve.

Serve

  1. Serve with cold fish, asparagus, tomatoes, or cauliflower.

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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Horseradish + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cream + horseradishtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together483 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Cream
Whipped to stiff peaks, it adds a light, airy body to the sauce.
Mayonnaise
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, creamy base.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the richness of the cream and mayonnaise.
Grated horseradish
Adds a pungent, sharp heat that gives the sauce its characteristic bite.

The step that matters

Whip the cream until it forms stiff peaks. Under-whipped cream stays runny and dilutes the sauce, while over-whipped cream turns grainy and can separate. Stopping at stiff peaks gives a thick, stable body that holds when the mayonnaise and horseradish are folded in.

“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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