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Horseradish Sauce

A creamy sauce made with horseradish, vinegar, egg yolk, sweet cream, corn starch, water, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Horseradish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil water, vinegar, and horseradish together.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Add egg yolk, sweet cream, corn starch, butter, and salt.

  4. Finish cooking until thickened.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Horseradish + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Horseradish + corntop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50 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

Egg yolk
Enriches the sauce and helps it set as it cooks and thickens.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce when heated.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Horseradish
Provides the sharp, pungent flavour that defines the sauce.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sharpness of the horseradish.

The step that matters

Finish cooking until thickened. Egg yolk can curdle if it overheats, while the starch needs enough heat to thicken. Cook gently and keep stirring so the sauce thickens smoothly without scrambling.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, egg, cream, corn, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, egg, cream, corn, butter. 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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