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Sauce

Horseradish Cream Sauce

A creamy sauce made with butter, flour, milk, horseradish, and egg, seasoned with salt and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Horseradish Cream Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Add the flour and stir until well mixed.

  3. Stir in the salt and pepper, then gradually add the milk.

  4. Cook and stir until the mixture thickens.

  5. Once thick, add the horseradish and beaten egg.

  6. Heat through gently and serve hot or cold on various meats.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + horseradishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together743 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce and adds richness to the base roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into the sauce.
Fresh grated horseradish
Provides the sharp, pungent flavour that defines the sauce.
Egg
Adds richness and body to the sauce once it is thickened.

The step that matters

Once thick, add the horseradish and beaten egg.. Egg proteins can scramble if the sauce is too hot when they go in, so the sauce should be thick but off direct high heat. Heat gently afterward to keep it smooth.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, horseradish, egg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, horseradish, egg. 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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