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Horseradish Vinegar

A preserved horseradish and spice mixture steeped in malt vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Horseradish Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a dry bottle with a wide neck, add the salt.

  2. Add the scraped horseradish, bruised ginger, and other ingredients.

  3. Moisten the ingredients with a little cold vinegar before adding the hot vinegar.

Infuse

  1. Boil the malt vinegar and let it cool slightly before pouring it over the ingredients.

  2. Tie the bottle securely and leave it in a warm place for 36 hours.

Bottle

  1. Strain the mixture and pour it into small bottles, adding a chilli to each.

  2. Cork the bottles securely once they are completely cool.

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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Radish + garlictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Radish + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together172 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Scraped horse-radish
Supplies the sharp, pungent heat that flavours the vinegar.
Malt vinegar
Acts as the base liquid and extracts flavour from the other ingredients.
Salt
Helps draw out moisture and flavour from the horseradish and ginger.
Ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic note to the infused vinegar.

The step that matters

Moistening before adding the hot vinegar. Pouring boiling vinegar straight onto dry horseradish can drive off its volatile pungent compounds, which are what give it its sharp flavour. Wetting the ingredients first with cold vinegar lets the hot vinegar be added more gently.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (horse, radish, garlic, ginger, malt, vinegar):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Cinnamonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against horse, radish, garlic, ginger, malt, 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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