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Horseradish Sauce
Five tablespoonfuls scraped or grated horseradish, two teaspoonfuls sugar, one teaspoonful salt, half teaspoonful pepper, one tablespoonful mixed mustard, one tablespoonful vinegar, four tablespoonfuls rich sweet cream. Must be prepared just before using.--Mrs. S. T.
Horseradish Sauce.
Just before dinner, scrape one teacup of horseradish, add one teaspoonful white sugar, one saltspoonful salt, and pour over two tablespoonfuls good eider vinegar. It is best when just made.
Two versions from different contributors: one enriched with cream, one a plain vinegar relish. Both depend entirely on the root being grated at the last moment.
- The hinge: grate it freshHorseradish's heat comes from volatile isothiocyanates formed only when the cells are broken, and they begin dissipating within minutes. Both recipes say "just before using" and mean it — an hour ahead gives you a dull, faintly bitter paste. Acid stops the reaction, so adding the vinegar sets the heat at whatever level it has reached.
- Grating the rootPeel the root and grate on a fine rasp or pulse in a food processor. The fumes are far sharper than onion; work near an open window or run the processor with the lid on and let it settle before opening.
- A teacupA teacupful in this period is usually reckoned at around six fluid ounces, which would give roughly three-quarters of a cup of grated root for the second version; the book's own measure may differ. A saltspoonful is a quarter teaspoon.
- Mixed mustardNot dry mustard powder but prepared mustard — powder already slaked with water or vinegar. Any plain smooth mustard works; skip anything with strong added flavourings.
- Rich sweet cream"Sweet" means unsoured, not sugared. Use heavy cream. Four tablespoons poured in unwhipped gives a loose pouring sauce; whipping it to soft peaks first and folding it in gives the thicker sauce most people expect alongside beef.
- Eider vinegarA misprint for cider vinegar, a common household vinegar of the period. Cider vinegar suits the second recipe; the first does not specify, and plain white wine vinegar is fine there.
- Using bottled horseradishJarred prepared horseradish is already packed in vinegar and salt. Drain it well and cut the added vinegar and salt back sharply, then taste before adding more.
- Yield and servingAdding up the measures, the creamed version comes to about two-thirds of a cup and the vinegar one to something under a cup — condiment quantities for a table of several. Both are meant for roast or boiled beef, tongue, or cold cuts, and neither keeps.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1878), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree, gathered contributions from named and initialed Virginia housewives, which is why two unrelated horseradish sauces sit end to end here with no attempt to reconcile them — the book preserves each contributor's hand rather than editing to a single version. Horseradish is a hardy kitchen-garden perennial, dug through the cold months and grated as needed; the plant spreads from root fragments and is hard to get rid of once established, so a patch tended to be a permanent fixture. Its pairing with beef is long-established in English cookery, and the creamed version reflects the habit of softening the raw pungency with dairy — a treatment also associated with German and Central European tables, where horseradish accompanies boiled beef and smoked meats. The instruction to make it just before dinner is the real inheritance here: freshly grated root was the surest way to get any heat at all.