Name: Carrier Sauce
Ingredients: 1 small stick of horseradish, scraped; 1-2 onions, thinly sliced; ¼ cup vinegar; whole black pepper, to taste

Why it works: Horseradish and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,784 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Carrier Sauce

Ingredients

1 small stick of horseradish, scraped
1-2 onions, thinly sliced
¼ cup vinegar
whole black pepper, to taste

Directions

Make the sauce

Place the scraped horseradish and sliced onions in a sauce tureen.
Add vinegar and whole black pepper.

Serve with the meat

Set the tureen in a dripping pan under a roast of mutton.
Serve the sauce hot with the meat.

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.

Horseradish + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,784 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Horseradish + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,646 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Horseradish + vinegartop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,226 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

Horseradish: Provides the sharp, pungent heat that gives the sauce its character.
Onions: Add savory aroma and a mild sweetness to the sauce.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the heat of the horseradish.
Whole black pepper: Adds a mild, aromatic bite that complements the horseradish.