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Horseradish Sacce with Apples

A sauce made from grated horse-radish, apple sauce, and orange juice, served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Horse and radish work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 529 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Horseradish Sacce with Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate and finely chop the horse-radish root.

Cook and finish

  1. In a saucepan, combine the apple sauce and horse-radish.

  2. Cook over medium heat until the sauce reduces to one-quarter of its original quantity.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into an earthen bowl.

  4. Add the juice of one orange and serve cold.

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

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

  2. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Radish + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together51 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetal (cream, earthy).

  4. Radish + orangetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetal (cream, earthy).

  5. Horse + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together62 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Horse-radish root
Supplies the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Apple sauce
Provides the body and mild sweetness that balance the horseradish's bite.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and brightness to lift the flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Reduce the sauce to one-quarter of its original quantity. Cooking drives off water and concentrates the sauce, so it thickens and its flavour intensifies. Stopping early leaves it thin and weak, while over-reducing can make it pasty or scorch on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (horse, radish, apple, sauce):

  1. Grapefits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against horse, radish, apple, sauce. 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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