Name: A Russian Sauce
Ingredients: 4 tablespoons grated horseradish; 2 teaspoons made mustard; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 teaspoon sugar; vinegar (enough to cover ingredients)

Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

A Russian Sauce

Ingredients

4 tablespoons grated horseradish
2 teaspoons made mustard
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 teaspoon sugar
vinegar (enough to cover ingredients)

Directions

Combine grated horseradish, made mustard, coarse sea salt, and sugar in a bowl.
Add vinegar until the mixture is just covered.
Mix well and serve as a sauce for cold meats or with melted butter for fish.

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.

Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,832 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Horseradish + vinegartop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,609 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Mustard + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,424 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated horseradish: Provides the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Made mustard: Adds sharp, savoury flavour that supports the horseradish heat.
Sugar: Balances the sharpness and bitterness of the horseradish and vinegar.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and sharpens the sauce.

“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.