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Horseradish Vinegar

A fermented horseradish and vinegar condiment made with salt, garlic, ginger, chillies, and malt vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Horseradish Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Take a dry bottle with a wide neck.

  2. Add the salt to the bottle.

  3. Add the scraped horse-radish, bruised ginger, and other ingredients.

  4. Moisten the ingredients with a little cold vinegar.

Infuse

  1. Boil the vinegar.

  2. Pour the boiled vinegar over the mixture once it has cooled slightly.

  3. Tie down the bottle.

  4. Leave the bottle in a warm place for 36 hours.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture.

  2. Pour the strained mixture into small bottles, adding a chilli to each.

  3. Cork the bottles securely once they are completely cool.

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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Radish + garlictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Radish + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together172 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Scraped horse-radish
Provides the sharp, pungent heat that flavours the vinegar.
Malt vinegar
Acts as the liquid that extracts flavour from the other ingredients and adds acidity.
Salt
Helps draw moisture from the plant material and adds seasoning.
Chillies
Add further heat and pungency to the infused vinegar.
Ginger
Adds aromatic warmth that complements the horseradish.

The step that matters

Pour the boiled vinegar over the mixture once it has cooled slightly. Pouring boiling vinegar onto the horseradish can dull its volatile pungent compounds, which form when the cut root meets air and liquid. Letting it cool slightly protects the flavour while still warming the infusion.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (horse, radish, garlic, ginger, malt, vinegar):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Cinnamonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against horse, radish, garlic, ginger, malt, 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.

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