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Horseradish Sauce

A cold or gently heated sauce made from grated horse-radish, sugar, salt, pepper, mustard, vinegar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Radish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 297 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Horseradish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated horse-radish with sugar, salt, pepper, and mustard.

  2. Moisten the mixture with enough vinegar to achieve a creamy consistency.

  3. Mix thoroughly and then add the cream.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with cold meat, or heat gently (do not boil) for hot roast beef.

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. Radish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Horse + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together201 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Grated horse-radish
Provides the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and softens the sharpness of the horse-radish.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and moistens the mixture to a creamy consistency.
Made mustard
Adds sharpness and a mild pungent flavour that complements the horse-radish.

The step that matters

Heat gently without boiling. Boiling a cream-based sauce can cause it to separate and curdle, and it can dull the sharp pungency of the horse-radish. Gentle heat keeps the sauce smooth and its flavour bright.

Swap the radish

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

  1. Radishthe original
  2. Horseradishfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits less well
  4. Broccolifits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against horse, sugar, pepper, mustard, vinegar, cream. 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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