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Horseradish Sauce

A sauce made from grated horseradish, egg, cream, butter, vinegar, sugar, and salt, served with oysters or cold fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Horse and radish work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 529 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Horseradish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the horseradish

  1. Cover the horseradish with water and boil for 30 minutes.

  2. Drain the water and add the vinegar, butter, sugar, and salt; mix well.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg and cream together and add just before serving.

  2. Serve with oysters or cold 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.

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

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

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Radish + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together508 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Horseradish (in the method)
Provides the sharp, pungent heat that defines the sauce.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Egg
Beaten in to add body and a richer, smoother texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, mellowing the horseradish bite.
Butter
Adds fat and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and cream just before serving. Horseradish loses its pungency and the sauce can thin or separate if it sits too long after the cream is added, so the cream should be beaten in right before serving.

Swap the radish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (horse, egg, cider, vinegar, butter, cream, sugar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Radishthe original
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against horse, egg, cider, vinegar, butter, cream, sugar. 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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