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Sauce

Epicurean Sauce

A creamy sauce made with tarragon vinegar, horseradish, mustard, mayonnaise, whipped cream, cayenne pepper, and salt.

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 ↓

Epicurean Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the tarragon vinegar, horseradish, mustard, salt, and cayenne together.

  2. Add the whipped cream and mayonnaise to the mixture.

  3. Beat thoroughly until well combined.

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. Tarragon + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Tarragon + horseradishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together73 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Whipped cream
Adds lightness and a smooth, creamy body to the sauce.
Mayonnaise
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, velvety texture.
Horseradish
Provides the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and cuts through the richness.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, tangy bite and helps the mixture stay combined.

The step that matters

Beat thoroughly until well combined. Whipped cream can be overbeaten once mixed with other ingredients, causing it to thicken too much or turn grainy. Stop as soon as the mixture is smooth and evenly blended.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tarragon, vinegar, pepper, cream, mustard):

  1. Horseradishthe original
  2. Lettucefits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against tarragon, vinegar, pepper, cream, mustard. 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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