Name: Horse Radish Sauce
Ingredients: ½ pint of beaten cream; ¼ teaspoon of pepper; ¼ teaspoon of salt; 2 tablespoons of vinegar; 1 teaspoon of castor sugar; 2 teaspoons of mixed mustard; 1 stick of horse-radish

Why it works: Mustard and radish 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 ↓

Horse Radish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Scrape the horseradish and grate it finely.
Mix the grated horseradish with the other ingredients.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Mustard + radishtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together297 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together529 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Mustard + horsetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together201 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Vinegar + radishtop 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

Beaten cream: Adds richness and a soft, smooth body that mellows the sauce.
Horseradish (in the method): Provides the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and sharpens the heat.
Mixed mustard: Adds extra pungency and a savoury, tangy depth.
Castor sugar: Adds a little sweetness to balance the sharpness of vinegar and horseradish.

Swap the radish

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

Radishthe original
Horseradishfits about as well
Capsicumfits less well
Broccolifits less well

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