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Horseradish Sauce II
3 tablespoons cracker crumbs 1/3 cup grated horseradish root 1 1/2 cups milk 3 tablespoons butter 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper Cook first three ingredients twenty minutes in double boiler. Add butter, salt, and pepper.
A cream-style horseradish sauce thickened with cracker crumbs rather than flour, meant for boiled beef, tongue or poached fish. It is simple, but two things decide whether it works: the crumbs and the heat.
- The hinge: keep it off direct heatThe double boiler is not caution for its own sake. Milk thickened with cracker crumbs and loaded with horseradish scorches quickly over a burner, and scorched milk tastes of nothing else. Twenty minutes over simmering water is right; the crumbs need that long to swell and lose their grittiness.
- Cracker crumbsThese are plain unsalted or lightly salted soda crackers, crushed fine, not seasoned crumbs and not breadcrumbs. Roll them to a near-powder or the sauce will stay grainy. If your crackers are salty, hold back on the half teaspoon of salt until the end.
- Fresh horseradish rootA third of a cup grated is a few inches of root, peeled, depending on how thick it is. Grate it just before use and keep your face away from the bowl; the volatile oils are strongest in the first minutes and fade with cooking, so this finished sauce is milder than the raw root suggests.
- Bottled horseradish insteadPrepared horseradish is packed in vinegar and may thin or slightly curdle the milk if cooked in. If you use it, drain it well and stir it in at the end with the butter, using a third to a half cup and tasting as you go.
- ConsistencyCracker crumbs vary a good deal in absorbency. Expect something between a pouring cream and a thin gravy; loosen with a little more warm milk if it stiffens too much in the twenty minutes.
- Yield and servingMakes about a cup and a half, enough for six to eight servings alongside boiled beef, corned beef, tongue or a firm poached fish. Serve warm rather than hot, and do not let it stand over heat once the butter is in.