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Prussian Sauce
Mix together in a saucepan a scant pint of hot bechamel sauce, a teaspoonful of powdered sugar, half a teaspoonful of red pepper, about three tablespoonfuls of horseradish well grated, and a couple of spoonfuls of raw cream, and let it boil for four or five minutes, stirring the while, and it is ready for use.
A hot horseradish cream built on bechamel, meant for boiled beef, ham, or poached fish. It comes together in minutes provided the base sauce is already made and smooth.
- The hinge: add the horseradish lateHorseradish loses its heat quickly once cooked; the volatile compounds that give it bite break down with sustained heat. Four or five minutes at a bare simmer is the outside limit, and stirring in a final spoonful of grated horseradish off the heat restores the sharpness the boil takes away.
- A scant pintJust under two cups of bechamel. The sauce should be on the loose side going in, since the boil will tighten it further.
- "Red pepper"In American books of this period this means cayenne, not paprika or crushed chile flakes. Half a teaspoon in two cups of sauce is genuinely hot; a quarter teaspoon is closer to what most palates now expect, with more added to taste.
- Raw creamMost likely just fresh, uncooked cream, i.e. not scalded, soured or clotted; heavy cream is the usual modern stand-in. "A couple of spoonfuls" is ambiguous in the original, but tablespoons are the reasonable reading.
- Grated horseradishThree tablespoons of freshly grated root. Bottled prepared horseradish is packed in vinegar and is milder by volume, so use closer to four tablespoons and drain it first, or the sauce will taste sour.
- The sugarA teaspoon of powdered sugar is not there to sweeten but to round the cayenne and the raw bite of the horseradish. It should not be detectable in the finished sauce.
- Boiling a bechamelA flour-thickened sauce will take a short boil without splitting, but keep it moving and use a heavy pan. If it is held warm afterward, cover the surface or it will skin.
- YieldAbout two cups, enough for six to eight servings alongside boiled beef, tongue, ham, or a firm poached fish.
Horseradish with boiled meat is northern European bedrock, and the "Prussian" label in turn-of-the-century American hotel cookery was likely less a claim of authenticity than a menu shorthand for German-style: sharp, creamy, served hot with beef or tongue. In an era when French sauce technique was the professional grammar of the hotel kitchen, national names were routinely hung on its variations, so a bechamel spiked with horseradish and cayenne could be filed under Prussia the way another might be called Hollandaise or Portugaise. The recipe also assumes a kitchen with bechamel already made and to hand.