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Horseradish Vinegar

A condiment made by mixing grated horseradish with shallots, salt, cayenne pepper, and malt vinegar, then fermenting and bottling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 376 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Horseradish Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the infusion

  1. Mix the horseradish, shallots, salt, and cayenne together.

  2. Boil the vinegar and pour it over the mixture.

  3. Cover the vessel and let it stand in a warm place for 10 days.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the vinegar into a saucepan and bring it to a boil.

  2. Let it cool, then pour into small bottles, cork tightly, and store in a cool, dry place.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Horseradish + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Grated horseradish
Supplies the sharp, pungent flavour that gives the vinegar its character.
Malt vinegar
Acts as the liquid base that extracts and carries the horseradish flavour.
Shallots
Add a mild savoury sweetness that rounds out the sharpness.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat that builds alongside the horseradish pungency.

The step that matters

Covering and standing for 10 days in a warm place. Flavour is extracted slowly over time, so the vessel must be kept covered to hold in the volatile aroma and the full ten days are needed for the infusion to develop.

Swap the horseradish

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, pepper, malt, 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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