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HORSE-RADISH SAUCE (for cold Roast Beef)
Wash and brush the horse-radish. Soak it for an hour in cold water, and scrape it very finely with a sharp knife. Mix two table-spoonfuls of it with half a tea-spoonful of salt and a tea-spoonful of powdered mustard. Add gradually a quarter of a pint of cream, or, instead, the yolk of an egg mixed with three table-spoonfuls of olive oil, and afterwards two table-spoonfuls of vinegar; stir in briskly but gradually. Mix well, and serve in a boat. Time, half an hour to prepare. Probable cost, 1s. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A straightforward cold sauce in two versions: a cream one and an emulsified egg-and-oil one. The single thing that governs the result is how recently the root was grated.
- Grate at the last minuteHorseradish heat comes from volatile isothiocyanates released when the cells are cut, and they begin dissipating within half an hour. Scrape or grate immediately before mixing, and add the vinegar promptly, since acid stabilises the pungency.
- Never warm itThis is a cold sauce for cold beef. Heat drives off the pungent compounds and, in the egg-and-oil version, will split the emulsion.
- A quarter of a pintAn imperial quarter-pint is 5 fl oz, a little under 2/3 US cup. For the alternative, one yolk to three tablespoons oil is a small, loose mayonnaise rather than a stiff one.
- Powdered mustardThis means dry English mustard powder, not prepared mustard from a jar. A teaspoonful is assertive alongside the horseradish, which is the intention.
- The cream versionUse double or heavy cream, added gradually as the recipe directs. Whipping it lightly first will give a fluffier sauce; the recipe as written gives a pourable one.
- Raw yolkThe oil version is an uncooked mayonnaise. If serving it to anyone elderly, pregnant or immune-compromised, use pasteurised eggs.
- Soaking the rootThe recipe does not say why the root is soaked for an hour; the likeliest purpose is to freshen a root that has been in storage and make scraping easier. A very fresh root will need it less.
- Yield and keepingFive or six portions, as stated. The cream version holds a day covered in the refrigerator; the egg version should be eaten the same day.
Horse-radish with beef is a long-established pairing in English cookery, with the root recorded as a sauce plant from the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries onward, when it was grown in kitchen gardens for medicine as well as the table. The title's 'for cold Roast Beef' places this among the cold-table sauces, and a joint eaten cold the following day was a fixture of the Victorian household. The second alternative given here — yolk and oil — is essentially a mayonnaise, a technique English cookbooks had absorbed from French practice by the mid-nineteenth century. The costing at one shilling, and the note that it serves five or six, are typical of the dictionary's format, which was aimed at households budgeting their own catering rather than at professional kitchens.