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Horseradish Vinegar

A fermented condiment made by mixing horseradish, shallots, cayenne pepper, salt, mustard, and boiling vinegar, then steeping and straining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard 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 Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a jar, combine grated horseradish, chopped shallots, Cayenne pepper, salt, and mustard.

  2. Pour boiling vinegar over the mixture.

Steep

  1. Cover the jar and place it by the fire for two weeks.

Strain and bottle

  1. After two weeks, boil the vinegar, let it cool, and strain through a jelly bag.

  2. Bottle the strained vinegar for use.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Horseradish + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together376 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated horseradish
Supplies the sharp, pungent flavour that the vinegar takes on during steeping.
Chopped shallots
Adds a mild onion-like aroma and savoury depth to the infused vinegar.
Vinegar
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavour from the horseradish and shallots.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat that builds in the vinegar over the steeping period.
Mustard
Contributes a sharp, pungent note that rounds out the horseradish heat.

The step that matters

Boiling the vinegar before straining. Boiling the vinegar after steeping helps stabilise the infusion and reduces the risk of spoilage in the bottled product. Letting it cool before straining keeps the jelly bag from being damaged and lets the liquid run clear.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Radishfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Broccolifits about as well
  4. Lettucefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against horseradish, pepper, mustard, 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.

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