Name: A Sauce for Roast Beef
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon finely grated horseradish; 2 teaspoons prepared mustard; 2 teaspoons brown sugar; vinegar (to desired thickness)

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 Sauce for Roast Beef

Ingredients

1 tablespoon finely grated horseradish
2 teaspoons prepared mustard
2 teaspoons brown sugar
vinegar (to desired thickness)

Directions

In a bowl, combine the horseradish, mustard, and brown sugar.
Add vinegar gradually until the mixture is as thick as prepared mustard.

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

Horseradish: Provides the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Prepared mustard: Adds sharpness and body, and sets the thickness the sauce should reach.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the heat and the acidity of the vinegar.
Vinegar: Adds acidity and thins the mixture to the desired consistency.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar gradually. Vinegar thins the mixture quickly, so adding it in small amounts lets you stop at the right thickness. Too much at once makes the sauce runny and hard to correct.

“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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A Sauce for Roast Beef