Name: Prepared Horseradish
Ingredients: 1 cup grated horse-radish; 2 tablespoons white sugar; ½ teaspoon salt; 1 pint cold vinegar

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 ↓

Prepared Horseradish

Ingredients

1 cup grated horse-radish
2 tablespoons white sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 pint cold vinegar

Directions

Mix the grated horse-radish, sugar, salt, and vinegar thoroughly.
Store the mixture in a large-mouthed bottle with a cork.

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.

Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together529 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Radish + vinegartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together508 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Horse + vinegartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together331 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Horse + sugartop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together146 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Horse-radish: Supplies the sharp, pungent heat that defines the relish.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps keep the relish stable in storage.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the horse-radish and vinegar.