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Kren, or Meerrettig Sauce — Horseradish Sauce

A spicy horseradish sauce made with grated horseradish, salt, olive oil, vinegar, sugar, orange juice, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,456 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Kren, or Meerrettig Sauce — Horseradish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the horseradish

  1. Soak the horseradish in water for 1 hour.

  2. Scrape and grate the horseradish finely.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the grated horseradish with salt, olive oil, and enough white vinegar to achieve a thick cream consistency.

  2. Rub the sugar on the orange peel, squeeze the juice over it to dissolve, and mix into the sauce.

  3. Add cayenne pepper to taste.

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. Olive + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Horseradish + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 defines the sauce.
Olive oil
Adds fat and smoothness, softening the sharp bite of the horseradish.
White vinegar
Adds acidity and helps set the sauce to a thick cream consistency.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness to balance the heat and acidity.
Orange juice
Adds fruity brightness and acidity alongside the sugar.

The step that matters

Grate the horseradish finely and soak it first. Grating releases the volatile compounds that give horseradish its heat, and soaking softens the root so it grates evenly. Heat builds as the cut root sits, so the sauce's strength depends on timing and fineness. Acid such as vinegar then stabilises the flavour.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, vinegar, sugar, orange, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, vinegar, sugar, orange, 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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