Name: Horseradish Sauce for Boiled Sea Fish
Ingredients: 1 cup white sauce; 2 tablespoons grated horse-radish; 1 teaspoon anchovy essence; 1 cup mayonnaise; 2 tablespoons grated horse-radish; a few drops tarragon vinegar

Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Horseradish Sauce for Boiled Sea Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hot sauce

Prepare a white sauce using court bouillon.
Season the sauce and stir in the grated horse-radish and anchovy essence.

Make the cold version

For a cold version, prepare mayonnaise in the usual way.
Add grated horse-radish and tarragon vinegar to the mayonnaise.

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.

Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together529 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,547 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Radish + tarragontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together12 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Radish + vinegartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together508 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

White sauce: Forms the creamy base that carries the other flavours.
Grated horse-radish: Provides the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Anchovy essence: Adds a savoury depth that rounds out the sharpness.
Mayonnaise: Supplies a rich, emulsified fat base for the cold version.
Tarragon vinegar: Adds a light acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

Swap the tarragon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, horse, radish, anchovy, vinegar):

Capersfits better
Garlicfits better
Parsleyfits about as well
Tarragonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, horse, radish, anchovy, 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.