Skip to main content
Main

Russian Sauce

A tomato and celery sauce with sugar, salt, pepper, mustard seed, celery seed, horseradish, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mustard and horseradish 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Scald and skin the tomatoes, then cut them into dice-sized pieces.

  2. Place the tomatoes in a colander for 4 to 5 hours to drain.

  3. Cut the celery to match the size of the tomatoes.

Mix and store

  1. In a large bowl, mix the tomatoes, celery, sugar, salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, mustard seed, celery seed, and grated horseradish.

  2. Add the cider vinegar and mix well.

  3. Transfer the mixture into airtight jars and store in a cool place.

  4. Do not heat the mixture during preparation; it will keep well if the vinegar is good.

  5. It will be ready for use in a few days.

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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Celery + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together835 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

Tomatoes
Provide the bulk and moisture of the relish, which is drained first to firm it up.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, savoury vegetable flavour to the relish.
Cider vinegar
Acidity that preserves the mixture and sharpens its flavour during storage.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and horseradish with sweetness.
White mustard seed
Contributes sharp, pungent flavour and a little crunch to the mix.
Horseradish
Supplies its sharp, pungent heat that gives the dressing its characteristic bite.

The step that matters

Draining the tomatoes. Tomatoes hold a lot of water. Draining them for 4 to 5 hours removes excess liquid so the dressing stays thick rather than watery in the jar.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Radishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, sugar, pepper, mustard, horseradish, cider, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes