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Horseradish Sauce
1/4 cup heavy cream 3 tablespoons grated horse radish 1/4 teaspoon salt Sprinkle cayenne or pepper 1 tablespoon vinegar Whip the cream until stiff. Gradually beat in mixture of other ingredients. Serve on baked ham.
A cold whipped-cream horseradish, closer to a chantilly than to the mayonnaise-based sauces sold today. It takes five minutes and is best made within an hour or two of serving.
- Fold, do not beatThe instruction to "gradually beat in" the seasonings will knock the air out if taken literally with a mixer. Whip the cream to firm peaks, then fold in the horseradish mixture with a spatula in two or three additions.
- Drain the horseradishThe recipe does not say whether the grated horseradish is fresh root or bottled. If using bottled prepared horseradish, press out the packing liquid first: undrained bottled horseradish plus the tablespoon of vinegar will thin the cream and may cause it to weep.
- Heavy creamUse cream at 36 percent fat or higher, well chilled. Ultra-pasteurised cream whips but collapses faster, which matters in a sauce that already has acid in it.
- The vinegarPlain white or cider vinegar; add it to the horseradish and salt first so it is dispersed before it meets the cream. Acid dropped directly onto whipped cream can make it grainy.
- CayenneA sprinkle means a pinch, well under an eighth of a teaspoon. Fresh horseradish already carries considerable heat, so taste the horseradish mixture before deciding.
- Yield and holdingMakes roughly three-quarters of a cup, enough for six servings alongside ham. It will slacken in the refrigerator after a couple of hours and cannot be re-whipped once the horseradish is in.
- Beyond hamThe recipe directs it to baked ham, but it suits cold roast beef, smoked trout and boiled beef as readily.
Horseradish root has been served with beef and pork in northern and central Europe for centuries, and English cookery books were pairing grated root with vinegar and cream long before this collection appeared. The cream version softens the volatile mustard oils that make raw horseradish so sharp: fat coats the palate and blunts the burn, which is why the root is so often bound with cream, sour cream or oil rather than served plain. That the sauce here is whipped rather than stirred is characteristic of American cookery of the 1920s and 1930s, when whipped cream turned up in salad dressings, gelatines and molded desserts alike. The Delineator was a Butterick fashion magazine with a substantial household department, and its recipe pages favored this sort of quick, presentable accompaniment.