Name: Saxad or Piquante Sauce for Cold Meat, Fish, Ac.
Ingredients: 1 ounce scraped horseradish; ½ ounce coarse sea salt; 1 tablespoon prepared mustard; 4 teaspoons minced shallots; ½ teaspoon celery seed; ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper; 1 pint tarragon vinegar

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 ↓

Saxad or Piquante Sauce for Cold Meat, Fish, Ac.

Ingredients

Directions

Combine the scraped horseradish, coarse sea salt, prepared mustard, minced shallots, celery seed, and cayenne pepper in a bowl.
Gradually add the tarragon vinegar while mixing until well combined.
Serve the sauce chilled with cold meats or 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).
Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together602 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Mustard + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together859 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Horseradish + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together376 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together901 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Horseradish: Supplies the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Prepared mustard: Adds sharp tang and body that supports the horseradish bite.
Tarragon vinegar: Provides acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the heat.
Minced shallots: Adds a mild, savoury onion note under the sharper flavours.
Cayenne pepper: Contributes a lingering background heat.
Celery seed: Adds a warm, aromatic savoury note.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (horseradish, mustard, shallot, pepper, tarragon, vinegar):

Capersfits better
Dillfits better
Parsleyfits better
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against horseradish, mustard, shallot, pepper, tarragon, 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.