No. 589

Apple Sauce, English Style

Sauce aux Pommes a' l'Anglaise

Cut up one pound of peeled apples, small, cook them with a little water and a grain of salt; when dry mix in four spoonfuls of grated fresh horseradish; remove from the fire at once, and press through a sieve; mix into the pulp a spoonful of sugar and the juice of two oranges. Heat up without boiling, and remove as soon as the sugar is dissolved. This sauce can be served with all salted and smoked meats.

← No. 588 Chantilly Apple Sauce with Horseradish a la Cold Sauces No. 590 Apple Sauce for Gourmets, Apple Sauce with H →

For the Modern Kitchen

A short, sharp condiment rather than a nursery apple sauce: the horseradish and orange do the work, and both are ruined by heat. One pound of peeled apples yields roughly a cup and a half of finished sauce, enough for six to eight servings alongside ham or smoked fish.

Never let it boil after the horseradish goes inThe pungency of horseradish comes from volatile compounds released when the root is grated, and they cook off within a minute or two of real heat. Ranhofer's instruction to remove it from the fire "at once" and later to warm it "without boiling" is the hinge of the recipe.
SpoonfulsAn unqualified "spoonful" in The Epicurean is generally read as a tablespoon, which gives about 4 tablespoons grated horseradish and 1 tablespoon sugar. A "grain of salt" is a pinch.
HorseradishFresh root, peeled and grated on a fine rasp, is what is meant. Jarred prepared horseradish is packed in vinegar and already half-spent; if you use it, drain it and expect a duller, more acidic sauce. Bottled creamed horseradish is not a substitute here.
ApplesA tart cooking apple that breaks down readily — Bramley, Granny Smith, or a McIntosh-type — gets you to the dry, collapsed stage quickly. A pound of apples once peeled and cored means starting with rather more than that, say three or four medium apples. "A little water" is unquantified; two or three tablespoons is enough to keep the pan from catching before the fruit releases its own juice.
Cooking downCovered, over low heat, 10 to 15 minutes, then uncovered until the pulp mounds on the spoon rather than running. Wet apple pulp will not carry the horseradish; it will taste thin and separate in the dish.
The sieveA drum sieve or a food mill gives the smooth texture intended. A blender or food processor will do it but shreds the horseradish into fibers instead of suspending it — push it through a mesh strainer with a rubber spatula if you want the original result.
Orange juiceOrange size and acidity vary widely, so two oranges is not a fixed quantity. Start with the juice of one, taste, and add more; the sauce should be bracing, not sweet. A little of the zest is not in the recipe but is not out of keeping.
ServingIt sits in the cold sauces chapter, so warm it only to dissolve the sugar and then let it cool. Serve at room temperature or lightly chilled with boiled ham, corned beef, tongue, smoked goose, or smoked trout. It keeps three or four days refrigerated but loses its bite steadily.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's for over thirty years, published The Epicurean in 1894 as an exhaustive record of the restaurant's kitchen, and its cold-sauce chapter works through a series of variations on apple. Calling this one "English style" reflects the long British pairing of horseradish with salted and smoked meats — and apple with pork, are both firmly established in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English cookery — while the orange juice and the sieved finish are Ranhofer's French training asserting itself. Horseradish is generally traced to central and eastern Europe as a cultivated condiment, and it reached English tables early enough that John Gerard's herbal of 1597 notes the Germans eating it grated with fish. That the book gives two apple-and-horseradish sauces among its neighboring numbered recipes says something about how seriously a Gilded Age restaurant took the accompaniments to a cold buffet of ham and tongue.