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Horse-Radish Sauce
2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons grated horse-radish (fresh) 1 tablespoon very thick cream 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice Cream butter; add grated horse-radish, cream and lemon juice. Keep very cold. Good with corned beef.
This is a compound butter rather than a poured sauce: it is creamed cold and served in a pat that melts over hot meat. Everything depends on keeping it cold and on the horseradish being genuinely fresh.
- Fresh horseradish means the rootGrate it from a peeled piece of raw root on the fine side of a box grater or in a small processor. Jarred prepared horseradish is packed in vinegar and will thin the butter and shift the flavour toward sharp acidity; if that is all you have, drain it hard first and cut the lemon juice.
- Grate it last, and away from your faceThe pungency comes from volatile compounds released only when the cells are broken, and it fades fairly quickly once the root is grated, so grate close to serving. The same compounds are strongly irritating to the eyes and nose, so grate in a ventilated spot.
- "Very thick cream"In older recipes this generally meant the heavy top of unhomogenised milk, likely thicker than today's heavy cream. Modern heavy cream works, or use creme fraiche or clotted cream for closer body. One tablespoon is all it takes; more will make the butter loose.
- Cream the butter properlyButter should be soft enough to beat smooth but not oily or melted, around 65F. Beat it alone until pale, then work in the horseradish, cream and lemon juice so the mixture emulsifies instead of separating.
- Keep very coldThis is the hinge. Roll the finished butter in parchment into a log, chill until firm, and cut coins to lay on the hot meat at the table. Warm, it slumps into a greasy puddle and the horseradish loses its edge.
- YieldAbout a quarter cup, enough for four to six servings as a garnish. It keeps two or three days refrigerated before the horseradish dulls; it freezes well in a wrapped log for a month or so.
- Beyond corned beefThe same butter suits boiled beef, roast beef, grilled steak, smoked fish and boiled potatoes.
Horseradish has been the traditional English accompaniment to boiled and roast beef for centuries, usually in one of three forms: grated raw into vinegar, folded into whipped or soured cream, or, as here, worked into butter. The butter version is generally associated with the hotel and household cookery of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when compound butters were a standard finishing device for meats and fish because they could be made in advance, rolled, chilled and sliced to order. The book's pairing with corned beef fits the cooking of the period on both sides of the Atlantic: corned (that is, salt-cured) beef boiled with vegetables was a staple, and a sharp, fatty condiment cut through both the salt and the long boiling. The plant itself, Armoracia rusticana, is a mustard-family root whose heat comes from the same class of compounds as mustard and wasabi, and which is often said to have reached English tables by way of Central and Eastern Europe.