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Horseradish Sauce

A sauce made from grated horseradish, vinegar, sugar, cream, salt, and mustard, served with roast beef.

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 Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Scrape and finely grate the horseradish.

  2. Mix the grated horseradish with vinegar, castor sugar, thick cream, salt, and mixed mustard.

Serve

  1. Serve with roast beef.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Horseradish + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Horseradish
Provides the main sharp, pungent heat of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and sharpens its flavour.
Thick cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the bite of the horseradish.
Castor sugar
Adds a little sweetness that balances the heat and acidity.
Mixed mustard
Adds further sharpness and a tangy, mustardy note.

The step that matters

Grate the horseradish and mix it in promptly. Grating ruptures the root's cells and releases volatile compounds that give horseradish its heat. These fade with air and time, so mixing soon after grating, with the vinegar, helps keep the sauce sharp.

“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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