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Horseradish Vinegar
Put three ounces of finely-chopped horseradish into a jar or a bottle, add one drachm of cayenne, one ounce of bruised onions, a small quantity of black pepper and celery-seeds, pour over one quart of vinegar, let remain for fourteen days, then filter off all the liquor, put it in bottles, cork them down, and the vinegar is ready for use. This can be employed to advantage in mixing mustard, or as a relish for cold meats, salads, etc.
A cold infusion, so the only real work is measuring the cayenne correctly and straining well. Everything here scales cleanly.
- A drachm of cayenneRead as the apothecaries' drachm this is one-eighth of an apothecaries' ounce, about 3.9 g; read as the avoirdupois dram it is one-sixteenth of an ounce, about 1.8 g. Call it somewhere between one and two teaspoons of ground cayenne in a quart, and start at the lower end if you want a vinegar you can pour freely.
- Three ounces of horseradishThat is about a cup of freshly grated root. Grate it in a well-ventilated spot or in a food processor with the lid on, since the volatile oil is genuinely eye-watering.
- Do not substitute prepared horseradishJarred horseradish is already packed in vinegar and often cream or oil, and its pungency has largely blown off. The infusion depends on freshly cut root, where the mustard oil is generated at the moment of grating.
- Which vinegarUnspecified in the original, as was normal; cider vinegar or a plain white wine vinegar both work. Use something labelled 5 percent acidity, which keeps the jar safely acidic through the two-week steep.
- Bruised onionsAn ounce is roughly a quarter of a medium onion. Crush it with the flat of a knife rather than chopping fine so it gives up juice without clouding the finished vinegar.
- The steepFourteen days at cool room temperature, out of direct light, with the jar shaken every day or two. Glass or a nonreactive jar only; vinegar will pit metal lids, so put a layer of plastic wrap under the cap.
- FilteringStrain first through a fine sieve, then through damp muslin or a coffee filter. Cayenne and celery seed leave a fine sediment that will keep the bottle looking muddy if you rush this stage.
- Yield and keepingSlightly under a quart after straining and absorption. Kept sealed in a cool cupboard it holds its heat for several months, though the horseradish note fades first.
Oscar Tschirky, the Swiss-born maître d'hôtel whose name fronted this 1896 book, was collecting for a hotel kitchen but also for the household reader, and flavoured vinegars were exactly the sort of standing preparation a nineteenth-century larder kept on the shelf. Horseradish (Armoracia rusticana), a mustard-family root generally traced to eastern and central Europe, releases its pungency only when the cells are broken, and vinegar both extracts and stabilises the compound before it volatilises away — which is why the root is nearly always sold and stored in acid. The suggested use for mixing mustard is the tell: dry mustard powder was bought by the tin and made up in small quantities as needed, and what you slaked it with determined the character of the finished condiment. A quart of this on hand meant sharp mustard, dressed salads and a relish for the cold joint could all be had without a fresh root each time.