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Sauce

Hot Horseradish

A creamy sauce made with butter, flour, stock, cream, lemon, egg yolks, mustard, vinegar, caster sugar, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Hot Horseradish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and flour together without browning them.

  2. Gradually mix in the chicken stock and cream, stirring until it boils.

Thicken and strain

  1. Add the lemon juice and egg yolks, stirring over low heat until thickened, but do not boil.

  2. Stir in the mustard, then strain the mixture through a tammy.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the French vinegar, a pinch of caster sugar, and the grated horseradish, mixing well before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Lemon + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the sauce base without browning.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce gently and add richness when heated over low heat.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving a smoother, silkier texture.
Horseradish
Provides the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Thickening over low heat without boiling. Egg yolks scramble and curdle if they get too hot, so the sauce must thicken gently over low heat and never boil.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, chicken, cream, egg, mustard, vinegar):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Raisinfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, chicken, cream, egg, 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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