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Sauce

Hobse-radish Sauce with Apples

A sauce made from grated horseradish, apple sauce, and orange juice, served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Hobse-radish Sauce with Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape and grate the horseradish root, then chop it finely.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the apple sauce and grated horseradish.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook over medium heat until the sauce reduces to one-quarter of its original quantity.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve into an earthen bowl.

  3. Stir in the juice of one orange and serve cold.

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. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  2. Horseradish + saucetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together775 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Horseradish + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Horseradish + orangetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together74 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Apple + saucetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Horseradish root
Supplies the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Apple sauce
Forms the smooth base and adds moisture and mild sweetness to balance the heat.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and brightness that lifts the flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Reducing the sauce over medium heat. Reducing concentrates the apple sauce and evaporates water, so the sauce thickens and the horseradish flavour becomes stronger. Cooking too long can dull the pungency, and stopping too early leaves the sauce thin and watery.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (horseradish, apple, sauce):

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against horseradish, apple, sauce. 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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