Name: Horseradish Sauce
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons prepared horseradish; ½ cup sour cream; 1 teaspoon lemon juice; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Horseradish and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,155 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Horseradish Sauce

Ingredients

2 tablespoons prepared horseradish
½ cup sour cream
1 teaspoon lemon juice
¼ teaspoon salt

Directions

In a bowl, combine prepared horseradish and sour cream.
Add lemon juice and salt, mixing well.
Serve chilled with meats or as a condiment.

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 + lemontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,155 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Horseradish + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together483 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,640 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,640 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Prepared horseradish: Provides the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Sour cream: Adds creamy body and a mild tang that softens the horseradish bite.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the cream.