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Horseradish Sauce

A cold horseradish sauce made with grated horseradish, mustard, sugar, vinegar, cream, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Radish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 297 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Horseradish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and scrape the horseradish.

  2. Grate a cup of horseradish finely.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the grated horseradish with mustard, sugar, cream, and salt.

  2. Stir in the vinegar and serve.

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. Radish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  3. Horse + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together201 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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

Horseradish (in the method)
Provides the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the bite of the horseradish.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and sharpens the sauce.
Mustard
Adds extra sharpness that complements the horseradish's heat.
Castor sugar
Adds a little sweetness that balances the heat and acidity.

The step that matters

Stir in the vinegar last. Vinegar slows the release of heat from grated horseradish and fixes its pungency, so the sauce stays at the strength you aimed for. Add it after the cream is mixed in, then taste before serving.

Swap the radish

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

  1. Radishthe original
  2. Horseradishfits about as well
  3. Beetrootfits less well
  4. Broccolifits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against horse, mustard, sugar, vinegar, cream. 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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