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Horseradish Sauce
To four tablespoonfuls of grated horseradish put one teaspoonful of salt, one teaspoonful of sugar, one half teaspoonful of pepper, two of mixed mustard and vinegar, three or four tablespoonfuls of cream. When served with hot beef put in a jar, which jar place in a saucepan of boiling water; cook slowly; do not let the mixture boil or it will curdle.
A cold cream horseradish that can be warmed gently for hot roast beef. The whole technique is in the last clause: keep it below a simmer.
- Do not let it boilCream held over direct heat with vinegar and salt in it will break. The jar-in-a-saucepan arrangement is a water bath, and it keeps the sauce off direct heat and below boiling; a heatproof bowl over barely simmering water does the same job.
- "Two of mixed mustard and vinegar"Genuinely ambiguous. The unit is dropped, and it reads most naturally as two teaspoonfuls, following the measures just before it, of prepared mustard slaked with vinegar. Add it a little at a time and taste, since the sharpness varies with the mustard.
- Grated horseradishThe recipe presumes freshly grated root, and the pungency of grated horseradish fades once it is exposed to air, so grate it shortly before use. Bottled grated horseradish packed in vinegar works, but drain it and cut back the vinegar in the mustard mixture.
- CreamCream of this period was unstandardised and often thinner than modern heavy cream, which will make a thicker, more stable sauce; whipping it lightly before folding in the horseradish gives the familiar cold version.
- Serving temperatureWarmed, this is for hot roast beef. Left cold and unheated the same mixture is also served with cold beef, and it needs no cooking at all.
- YieldAbout half a cup, enough for four to six servings alongside a roast. It does not keep well once the cream is in; make it the day it is wanted.
- VentilationGrating fresh root releases volatile mustard oils that hit the eyes and nose harder than onion. Grate in a food processor with the lid on, or at arm's length with the window open.
Horseradish with beef is one of the older fixed pairings in English cookery, and cookbooks of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries treat the grated root in vinegar as a condiment rather than a sauce. The creamed version, softened with dairy and lifted with mustard and a little sugar, is often placed in the later nineteenth century, when cream became more widely available and cooks turned sharp relishes into something spoonable. The instructions for warming it in a jar reflect a kitchen that still cooked over a range with uneven direct heat: a jam jar set in a pan of water was the improvised bain-marie of the period. The warning about curdling is the practical heart of the entry, and it is the same warning any cook combining cream with acid gets today.