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Horseradish Sauce, Cold

A cold sauce made with parsley, chervil, shallots, garlic, capers, anchovies, horseradish, oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Horseradish Sauce, Cold

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the parsley, chervil, shallots, garlic, capers, and anchovies.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped ingredients with horseradish, oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt. Mix well and serve 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.

  1. Shallot + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Chervil + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Chervil + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Capers + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Shallot + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together376 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Horseradish
Provides the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Anchovies
Adds savoury depth, an umami backbone that rounds out the sharp flavours.
Capers
Contribute briny acidity and a salty bite that cut through richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the horseradish heat.

The step that matters

Grating and resting the horseradish. Freshly grated horseradish releases pungent compounds when its cells are broken, and its heat fades with time and heat. Mixing it in last and serving cold keeps the sauce sharp.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, chervil, shallot, garlic, capers, horseradish, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, chervil, shallot, garlic, capers, horseradish, 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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