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Radish Sauce, Horse
Take a piece of butter the size of an egg, beat it up with half a table-spoonful of flour, thin it with a cupful of warm broth, place it on the fire to boil, stirring all the time; stir in two table-spoonfuls of grated horse-radish, let it heat but not boil, add a little salt, and serve. Vinegar may be added if liked.
A small roux-thickened broth sauce, finished with raw grated horseradish. The whole point is the heat of the root, and the whole risk is cooking it away.
- Never let it boil once the horseradish is inThe pungency of horseradish comes from volatile isothiocyanates released when the root is grated; they drive off quickly with heat. The original says "let it heat but not boil" and means it — keep the pan below a simmer once the root goes in.
- Butter the size of an eggRoughly 2 oz, or 4 tablespoons. With half a tablespoon of flour this is a very butter-heavy, lightly bound sauce rather than a proper velouté.
- A cupful of brothTake it as 8 fl oz. Beef broth suits the dish, since this sauce belongs beside boiled beef; a light veal or chicken broth works if you want it milder.
- Fresh root, not the jarTwo tablespoons of freshly grated horseradish is far sharper than the same volume of bottled horseradish, which is already cut with vinegar and has lost much of its heat. Grate the root at the last moment and keep your face out of the fumes.
- The vinegarA teaspoon of white wine vinegar at the end both stabilises the pungency and cuts the butter. Add it off the heat with the salt, tasting as you go.
- Yield and servingAbout a cup, enough for four. Traditional partners are boiled beef, brisket, tongue and smoked fish.
Horseradish sauce reached English tables from Central and Northern Europe, where the grated root has long accompanied boiled beef, and by the eighteenth century it was often served in Britain as a relish for roast and boiled beef alike. The version here is the hot, thickened kind rather than the cold cream sauce — a plain butter-and-broth base carrying the root, in the manner of the Austrian Meerrettichso dotße served with Tafelspitz. It works as a template: master the butter, flour and broth, and the flavouring can be changed at will. The instruction to heat but not boil shows the compilers understood, without the chemistry, that horseradish is a flavouring added at the end and never cooked.