Name: Horseradish Vinegar
Ingredients: 1 quart of vinegar; 3 ounces of scraped horseradish; 1 ounce of minced shallot; 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper; 1 teaspoon of black pepper; 1 teaspoon of mustard seed; 1 teaspoon of celery seed

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 Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Combine the vinegar, horseradish, shallot, cayenne pepper, black pepper, mustard seed, and celery seed in a jar. Seal the jar tightly.
Let it sit for a few weeks to develop flavor.

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.

Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,832 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together859 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Horseradish + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together376 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 the vinegar carries and mellows over time.
Vinegar: Acts as the solvent that extracts flavor and heat from the other ingredients.
Shallot: Adds a mild savory onion note that deepens during steeping.

Swap the celery

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

Capersfits better
Tarragonfits better
Dillfits better
Celerythe original

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