Skip to main content
Sauce

Horseradish Sauce, Hot

A hot sauce made with onions, wine, broth, lemon, garlic, herbs, capers, anchovy, pepper, salt, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and basil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,768 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Horseradish Sauce, Hot

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Slice the onions and fry them in oil until they begin to color.

  2. Transfer the onions to a saucepan with white wine, broth, lemon slices, garlic, bay leaf, thyme, basil, and cloves.

  3. Boil for 15 minutes, then strain the mixture.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add capers, chopped anchovy, pepper, salt, and horseradish.

  2. Warm the sauce gently without boiling.

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. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Lemon + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,823 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Fried until coloured, they build a sweet, savoury base for the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the boiled base.
Horseradish
Provides the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Capers
Add a briny, sharp acidity that balances the richness of the sauce.
Anchovy
Contributes deep savoury flavour that melts into the sauce.

The step that matters

Warm the sauce gently without boiling. Horseradish loses much of its pungency when heated for long or at high heat, and boiling can also cause the sauce to separate or taste harsh. Gentle warming keeps the flavour bright and the texture smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, lemon, clove, garlic, thyme, basil, capers):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Kalefits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, lemon, clove, garlic, thyme, basil, capers. 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.

More horseradish sauce recipes

Hot 21Russian 6Cream 3 See all 297 →

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesHot Lemon Cream SauceHot Lemon Cream Sauce11 recipesHorseradish Cream SauceHorseradish Cream Sauce6 recipesWine Sauce for Sweet PuddingsWine Sauce for Sweet Puddings6 recipes