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Horseradish Sauce

A sauce made from grated horseradish, broth, egg yolks, vinegar, spices, and optional Bechamel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and tarragon share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 73 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Horseradish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Grate the horseradish root finely until you have 1 cup.

  2. Simmer the grated horseradish in 2 cups of broth.

  3. Once done, thicken the broth over low heat with 2 beaten egg yolks and 2 teaspoons of tarragon vinegar.

  4. Add 1 teaspoon of Buckle's horseradish zest, 1 teaspoon of pepper, ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt, and a pinch of grated nutmeg.

Serve

  1. Serve in a sauceboat.

  2. For a richer sauce, mix in 1 cup of Bechamel off the heat, then heat gently in a bain-marie until hot but not 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. Horseradish + tarragontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together73 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Tarragon + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  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

Horseradish root
Provides the sharp, pungent flavour that defines the sauce.
Broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the horseradish flavour.
Egg yolks
Thicken the broth as they gently set over low heat, giving the sauce body.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.
Bechamel sauce
Adds creaminess and body when mixed in for a richer finish.

The step that matters

Thickening the egg yolks over low heat. Egg yolks set at moderate temperatures, and high heat or boiling can scramble them into lumps. Gentle heat and constant stirring keep the sauce smooth and thickened.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (horseradish, egg, tarragon, vinegar, pepper, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against horseradish, egg, tarragon, vinegar, pepper, sauce. 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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