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Horseradish

A preserved horseradish root grated and seasoned with salt, pepper, and vinegar, stored in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the horse-radish root and scrape off the outer skin.

  2. Grate the root finely and season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Cover the mixture with vinegar.

Store

  1. Transfer to tightly closed glass jars and store for use as needed.

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. Radish + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together508 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Radish + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together382 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Horse + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together331 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 condiment.
Vinegar
Covers the grated root, stabilising its flavour and preserving it for storage.

Swap the radish

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

  1. Radishthe original
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits less well
  4. Cabbagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against horse, pepper, vinegar. 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 horseradish recipes

Sauce 297Vinegar 46Hot Sauce 21Cream Sauce 16Butter 8Mustard Sauce 8 See all 5 →

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