Name: Horseradish Sauce for Roast Beef or Mutton
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons cream; 1 teaspoon mustard; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 4 tablespoons vinegar; freshly grated horseradish

Why it works: Mustard and horseradish 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 ↓

Horseradish Sauce for Roast Beef or Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Grate the horseradish into a bowl.
Add the cream, mustard, and salt; mix well.
Bruise the mixture with a spoon.
Add the vinegar and mix until thoroughly combined.
Serve in a small tureen, ensuring the vinegar and cream are cold.

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.

Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,832 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cream + horseradishtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together483 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Cream + vinegartop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,064 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).