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Horse-Radish Powder
Slice some horse-radish. Dry it in a Dutch oven very gradually, or the flavour will be lost. When thoroughly dry, pound it to powder, and keep it in bottles securely corked. The best time for preparing the powder is in November and December.
A three-line preserving note that turns on one word: gradually. Horse-radish owes its heat to volatile isothiocyanates released when the root is cut, and they leave with the water if you dry it fast or warm.
- "Dutch oven" here is not a potIn this period a Dutch oven is the open-fronted tin reflector set on the hearth before the fire, used for gentle radiant drying and roasting. The modern equivalent is a dehydrator or the lowest setting of a conventional oven with the door propped ajar, not a lidded casserole.
- Temperature is the whole recipeKeep the heat very low, well below that of a warm oven. Too much heat and the pungency drops off sharply, leaving a beige powder that tastes of little more than dust.
- Grate rather than sliceCoarse grating or thin shredding on a mandoline dries more evenly than the slices specified, and considerably faster.
- Ventilate while workingFreshly cut horse-radish throws off vapours that sting the eyes and nose considerably more than onion. Work near an open window and keep your face out of the food processor when you lift the lid.
- Pound to powderA spice grinder or clean coffee mill does in seconds what a mortar does in ten minutes. Let the dust settle before opening the lid, then sieve out any fibrous shreds.
- Bottles securely corkedThe point of the cork was an airtight seal; a small screw-top jar kept dark and cool does it better. The powder loses potency over a few months' keeping.
- Yield and useUse -- reconstitute a teaspoon in a little cold water for ten minutes before adding it to cream, sauces or a dressing; heat drives the flavour off again, so add it at the end.
- Why November and DecemberRoots lifted in late autumn, after the first frosts, are traditionally reckoned sharpest and to store best.
Horse-radish is at its best in late autumn and turns woody and mild by spring, so a household with a surplus had reason to dry it and keep a scrapeable heat available all year. The root had long been the standard English accompaniment to roast beef, and by the nineteenth century commercial dried and bottled preparations were sold, which made the home version a matter of economy and of knowing what was in the bottle -- adulteration of grated horse-radish with turnip was complained of in the period. The insistence on drying slowly reflects kitchen experience rather than chemistry the writer could have explained; the pungent compounds are formed only when the cells are broken and are volatile enough to vanish in a warm oven.