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Sauce

Horse Radish Sauce

A sauce made from cracker meal, water, broth, sugar, fresh grated horse-radish, and an egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Horse Radish Sauce

Why it works: Horse and radish work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 529 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Horse Radish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine cracker meal with enough water and broth to achieve desired gravy consistency.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Stir in a little sugar and fresh grated horse-radish. Do not boil any longer.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, beat in the yolk of one egg.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + horsetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together146 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + radishtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Horse + eggtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together96 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Cracker meal
Thickens the liquid into a gravy-like body as it heats.
Egg yolk
Enriches the sauce and adds body when beaten in off the heat.
Fresh grated horse-radish
Supplies the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.

The step that matters

Do not boil any longer. Once the horseradish is stirred in, prolonged boiling drives off its volatile pungent compounds, so the sauce loses its sharp bite. Egg yolk added to a boiling sauce can also scramble, so it is beaten in just before serving.

Swap the radish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, horse, egg):

  1. Mustardfits about as well
  2. Radishthe original
  3. Beetrootfits less well
  4. Capsicumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, horse, egg. 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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