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Sauce

Horseradish Sauce

A sauce made from grated horse-radish, water, salt, tarragon vinegar, cream, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Grate a quantity of horse-radish.

  2. Boil the grated horse-radish in enough water to achieve a sauce-like consistency.

  3. Add a pinch of coarse sea salt and 2-3 tablespoons of tarragon vinegar.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in ½ cup of cream beaten with 1 egg yolk.

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. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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
Provides the sharp, pungent flavour that defines the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the sharpness of the horseradish.
Egg yolk
Helps thicken the cream and gives the sauce a smoother, richer texture.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the heat.

The step that matters

Stir the cream and egg yolk in off the heat. Egg yolk can curdle or scramble if it meets high heat, so removing the pan from the heat before stirring in the beaten cream and yolk keeps the sauce smooth and thickened.

Swap the tarragon

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

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against horse, radish, vinegar, cream, egg. 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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