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Radish Sauce
Peel and grate the radishes, and mix them with a little oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper. This sauce is an excellent accompaniment to cold meat. If liked, scraped horse-radish equalling a third of the quantity of radishes, and as much minced beetroot may be mixed with the grated radish.
A cold relish rather than a sauce in the poured sense, and it depends entirely on the radishes being sharp and freshly grated. No quantities are given, so treat it as a ratio exercise.
- Working proportionsThe recipe gives no quantities. For a bunch of radishes (about 8 oz trimmed), start with 2 tablespoons oil, 1 tablespoon vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste, adjusting as you go. Enough for four to six as a condiment.
- Grate, do not processA food processor turns radishes to watery pulp. Use the coarse side of a box grater and drain the gratings briefly in a sieve, or the dressing will separate into pink liquid.
- The oil"Oil" here most likely means olive oil, the usual salad oil of the period. A grassy modern extra-virgin will dominate; a neutral oil or a gentle olive oil sits better against the radish.
- VinegarMalt or white wine vinegar is closest to period practice. Cider vinegar also works. Add it a little at a time, since radishes vary greatly in bite.
- HorseradishThe recipe means fresh root, scraped as it says, at about a third the quantity of the radishes. Bottled horseradish already contains vinegar and often cream, so cut the added vinegar back if you substitute it, and use less.
- BeetrootCooked beetroot, minced fine, is intended. It will bleed colour through the whole sauce within minutes, which is part of the appeal but means the dish stops looking fresh once mixed.
- TimingBest made no more than an hour ahead. Grated radish loses its heat and turns limp and sulphurous overnight.
Radishes were a standing feature of the Victorian and Edwardian cold table, served whole with butter and salt or, as here, reduced to a relish for the remains of a joint. Sauces of this kind belong to the long tradition of pungent root condiments eaten with cold beef and mutton, of which horseradish sauce is the survivor; the radish version trades on the same mustard-oil sharpness, since radish and horseradish both belong to the mustard family and both release their heat only when the cells are broken by grating. The addition of beetroot is characteristic of the period's fondness for colour on the supper table.