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Horseradish Sauce
Horseradish sauce can be made and kept indefinitely in tight jars. To a cupful of the grated root, add six tablespoonfuls of vinegar and a scant teaspoonful of salt. This is liked with a teaspoonful of Coleman's mustard added.
A plain prepared horseradish — root, vinegar, salt — of the kind that was expected in the house whenever game or boiled beef came to the table. The only real technique is in the grating and the timing of the vinegar.
- The hinge: when the vinegar goes inHorseradish develops its heat only after the cells are broken, and the reaction runs for a few minutes before it starts to fade. Add the vinegar immediately for a mild sauce, or wait two or three minutes for a fierce one; the vinegar stops the reaction and fixes whatever heat is present.
- GratingPeel the root and grate it fine, or pulse it in a food processor with the vinegar already in the bowl. The volatile oils are genuinely punishing at close range — work at arm's length, and open a window or lift the processor lid away from your face.
- "Kept indefinitely"It will not spoil dangerously in a sealed jar, but it does not keep its point. Refrigerated, expect good heat for three or four weeks, after which it turns flat, brownish and bitter. Make it in small batches.
- Coleman's mustardColman's mustard powder is still sold: dry English mustard, not the prepared yellow condiment in a jar. A teaspoonful of powder is what is meant here.
- VinegarPlain distilled white vinegar gives the cleanest result and the best colour. Cider vinegar also works, though it browns the sauce slightly.
- Yield and useSomething over a cup of sauce, to serve alongside game, roast or boiled beef. For the creamed version served with cold meats, fold a spoonful or two into lightly whipped cream just before serving rather than storing it that way.
- Fresh rootLook for firm roots with no soft ends or green shoots. A shrivelled root has already lost much of its pungency and no amount of grating will bring it back.
Horseradish reached the English and American table as a game and beef accompaniment because its sharpness cuts fat and offsets the strong flavour of hung venison and wildfowl. The plant spreads aggressively from root fragments and was a common kitchen-garden fixture in nineteenth-century America, often escaping into ditches and roadsides, so a household could dig what it needed rather than buy it. Commercially bottled horseradish was among the earlier packaged condiments sold in the United States in the later nineteenth century, but recipes like this one persisted in domestic cookbooks, the homemade article being fresher and hotter than anything that had spent months on a shelf. The reference to Coleman's -- usually spelled Colman's -- reflects how far that English mustard powder had spread in American kitchens.