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Sauce

To Serve with Roast Beef

A horseradish sauce made with grated horseradish, sugar, salt, pepper, mustard, vinegar, and optional cream, served cold or warmed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

To Serve with Roast Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the horseradish with sugar, salt, pepper, and mustard.

  2. Moisten with enough vinegar to achieve a creamy consistency.

  3. Add cream for improved flavor, if desired.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with cold meats or heat gently (do not boil) for hot roast beef.

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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Horseradish + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharpness and a little heat that complements the horseradish.
Vinegar
Moistens the mix and adds acidity that brightens the flavor.
Cream
Softens the heat and adds richness and a smoother texture.

The step that matters

Heat gently without boiling. Boiling drives off the volatile compounds that give horseradish its sharp aroma and heat, and can make the sauce taste flat or bitter.

“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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