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Sauce

Sauce, Horseradish

A sauce made from grated horse-radish, mustard, sugar, milk, cream, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Radish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 297 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Sauce, Horseradish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Grate the horse-radish finely.

  2. Mix the grated horse-radish with mustard, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  3. Add the milk, cream, and vinegar, and mix all together.

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. Radish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Horse + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together201 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Radish + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together508 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

Horse-radish
Supplies the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and a second layer of pungent flavour.
Cream
Adds fat and richness that softens the sharpness.
Milk
Thins the sauce and mellows the heat.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and sharpens the sauce.
Castor sugar
Balances the acidity and heat with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Grate the horse-radish finely. Grating breaks the root's cells and releases the compounds that create its pungent heat. Those compounds fade with time and heat, so grate close to mixing for the sharpest flavour.

Swap the radish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (horse, milk, mustard, cream, vinegar, sugar, pepper):

  1. Radishthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Broccolifits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against horse, milk, mustard, cream, vinegar, sugar, pepper. 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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