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Another, for Roast Meat, Steaks, or Chops

A sauce made from mushroom ketchup, walnut pickle, Jamaica pepper, horseradish, shallot, and cayenne pepper, infused and used with roast meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Another, for Roast Meat, Steaks, or Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine mushroom or oyster ketchup and walnut pickle in a jar.

  2. Add Jamaica pepper, horseradish, minced shallot, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Infuse the mixture for 10 days.

  4. Strain and bottle the infused sauce for use.

Use the sauce

  1. Add 1 to 2 tablespoons of the sauce to gravy for flavor.

  2. Melt butter and mix in the sauce to pour over steaks or chops.

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. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  3. Walnut + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together440 recipes

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

  4. Walnut + horseradishtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together259 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + horseradishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 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

Mushroom or oyster ketchup
Provides a deep, savory umami base for the sauce.
Walnut pickle
Adds a tangy, acidic, sharply seasoned flavor to the sauce.
Horseradish
Contributes a sharp, pungent heat that mellows during infusion.
Minced shallot
Adds a mild onion-like aroma and sharpness to the infused liquid.

The step that matters

Infuse the mixture for 10 days. Flavors from the spices and aromatics need time to extract into the liquid. Too short an infusion leaves the sauce harsh and unbalanced, while the sharp horseradish and cayenne mellow gradually as the steeping continues.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, pepper, horseradish, shallot. 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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