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Sauce

Russian Sauce for Cold Meats

A sauce made with grated horseradish, mustard, salt, powdered sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Russian Sauce for Cold Meats

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the horseradish using a fine grater.

  2. In a bowl, combine the grated horseradish, prepared mustard, salt, and powdered sugar.

  3. Add enough vinegar to cover the mixture.

Store

  1. Transfer the sauce to a tightly sealed bottle.

  2. Store in a cool place; it will keep for several months.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Horseradish + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Mustard + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 defines the sauce.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharpness and emulsifying body that supports the sauce's texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that softens the sharpness and helps the sauce keep.
Powdered sugar
Balances the heat and acidity with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Grate the horseradish finely. Finer grating breaks more of the horseradish's cell walls, releasing the compounds that create its pungent heat, so the sauce's bite is stronger and more even.

“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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