THE HORSERADISH DILEMMA – TO PRESERVE OR NOT TO PRESERVE

I am just having a Shakespeare moment.

I love horseradish. It seems you either love it or loathe it. I am a marmite person too.

So I was rather disappointed to find that my aunt barely mentions this fulsome root vegetable in Let’s Preserve It.

Dried horseradish, horseradish and beetroot relish and horseradish and tomato relish are the extent of the attention Beryl gives to this hot and volatile ingredient.

It can certainly be dried and preserved and made into relishes. I am however particularly partial to a creamy horseradish sauce with my roast beef and for this I consider it maybe better used in its fresh unpreserved form.

So it is slowly dawning on me that my aunt’s limited reference to preserving horseradish may have a good reason.

Bear in mind that fresh horseradish, whether bought or harvested, will last up to four weeks in the fridge and it is a simple job to make it from the unpreserved root.

I have added my own Horseradish sauce recipe helped by Mrs Beeton and a few others. 

HORSERADISH SAUCE

2 tablespoons freshly grated or chopped fresh horseradish (I use a food processor), 1 tablespoons white wine vinegar, 150ml  of lightly whipped cream or sour cream , parsley, salt and black pepper.

Mix all the ingredients, apart from the cream, well together and then fold into the whipped cream. Refrigerate and allow to blend for at least 24 hours before use. Somewhat more powerful than the supermarket jars. It will keep for several days in the fridge.

DRIED HORSERADISH

Wash, scrape and finely grate the horseradish; spread on a flat tin and dry in a very cool oven; when absolutely dried, store in airtight containers.

Once armed with dried horseradish, there can be a whole array of options for its use for example it can be turned into a horseradish infused vinegar see FLAVOURED VINEGARS or horseradish infused olive oil. It can be added  to spice up a tomato sauce, a cocktail sauces or seafood dishes  or used in my aunt’s relishes.

BEETROOT and HORSERADISH RELISH

450g (1lb) cooked beetroot, 450g (1lb) uncooked chopped cabbage, 225g (8oz) sugar, 2 tablelspoon. fresh horseradish (dried can be used), 1 tablespoon mustard, 1tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp white pepper, 570ml (1 pint) vinegar.

Chop beetroot roughly and cabbage finely, put together in pan with all ingredients; cook for 30 minutes; pot and cover at once. Incidentally this goes very well with fish.

All’s that ends well

Pippa