Skip to main content
Main

Horseradish Sauce

A creamy horseradish sauce made with butter, cream, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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, beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Mix in the cream and grated horse-radish.

  3. Add pepper, salt, and distilled white vinegar to taste.

  4. Ensure the sauce is as thick as good cream.

Serve

  1. Keep the sauce cool and serve in a sauce tureen.

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. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the sauce.
Cream
Adds moisture and a smooth, thick texture to the sauce.
Grated horse-radish
Provides the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Distilled white vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Ensure the sauce is as thick as good cream. Thickness depends on the fat and cream being fully worked together, and the sauce is loosened by added liquid. Adding vinegar too early can thin it, so check consistency before adjusting seasoning.

Swap the radish

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against horse, mustard, sugar, vinegar, olive, pepper, butter. 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 sauce recipes

Hot 21Russian 6Cream 3 See all 297 →

You might also like

Horseradish ButterHorseradish Butter6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes