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Sauce

Horseradish Sauce

A sauce made with turmeric, horseradish, mustard, vinegar, sugar, and olive oil, served with cold fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Horseradish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine turmeric, grated horseradish, mustard, vinegar, sugar, and olive oil.

  2. Beat all ingredients together well.

  3. Serve with cold fish.

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. Turmeric + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Turmeric + horseradishtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together437 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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

Grated horseradish
Provides the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and helps emulsify the oil and vinegar so they stay blended.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the rich oil.
Olive oil
Adds fat and body, giving the sauce a smooth, rich texture.
Sugar
Adds a small amount of sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of horseradish and vinegar.
Turmeric
Adds a yellow colour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Beat all ingredients together well.. Thorough beating breaks the oil into tiny droplets and disperses it with the vinegar and mustard. Mustard helps hold this emulsion, so the sauce stays smooth rather than separating into layers.

Swap the turmeric

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Turmericthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against horseradish, mustard, vinegar, sugar, olive. 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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