Horseradish Around the World

[ludja]

I've been perusing my Southern cookbooks looking for inspiration for nice vegetable recipes as the season turns. Ran across this recipe using fresh horseradish and thought of this recent thread.

It's a gratin with sweet potatoes and fresh horseradish I found in John Martin Taylor's: The New Southern Cook

($ for egullet if you order through this link. Not a one-stop book on traditional Southern Cooking but there are quite a few interesting recipes based on Southern ingredients and I've enjoyed it as an addition to my more traditional southern cookbooks)

Sweet Potatoes with Horseradish

~ 4 sm to med sweet potatoes (~ 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 lbs); peeled and sliced ~ 1/4 slices

3 Tbs freshly grated horseradish

1 cup whipping cream

Mix all ingredients and and turn into buttered baking dish or casserole (~ 9" by 13"), cover with foil and bake for ~ 30-45 min at 400 deg.

I love gratins and also prefer *less sweet* sweet potato recipes... could be good...

[iguana]

On the topic of growing horseradish, it's usually propagated from roots rather than seed. I got some roots from Johnny's Selected Seeds and planted them in the front of my flower bed several years ago. Because we have clay soil here in Chicago, instead of going down the roots shot off pencil-thin side roots, each several feet long, all over the garden. The next year we were finding horseradish offshoots all over the flower bed. It was scary-- reminiscent of the space alien from the Alien movies. So, if you plant it, try to give it a confined space. The leaves are also huge-- a Puerto Rican neighbor mentioned that his family used the leaves to wrap and steam stuff, like one would use banana leaves.

We dug the main root in the fall, after a hard frost and ground it in a mini-food processor. Grinding the root starts a chemical reaction that gives the heat-- adding vinegar stops the reaction and preserves the mixture. I waited several minutes before adding the vinegar-- when I took the lid off the food processor, the whole kitchen filled with fumes and my eyes started watering. We ate it on grilled bratwurst (Sheboygan style) and froze some for future use. Grinding the horseradish fogged the bowl of my food processor.

[KatieLoeb]

I've been perusing my Southern cookbooks looking for inspiration for nice vegetable recipes as the season turns. Ran across this recipe using fresh horseradish and thought of this recent thread.

It's a gratin with sweet potatoes and fresh horseradish I found in John Martin Taylor's: The New Southern Cook

($ for egullet if you order through this link. Not a one-stop book on traditional Southern Cooking but there are quite a few interesting recipes based on Southern ingredients and I've enjoyed it as an addition to my more traditional southern cookbooks)

Sweet Potatoes with Horseradish

~ 4 sm to med sweet potatoes (~ 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 lbs); peeled and sliced ~ 1/4 slices

3 Tbs freshly grated horseradish

1 cup whipping cream

Mix all ingredients and and turn into buttered baking dish or casserole (~ 9" by 13"), cover with foil and bake for ~ 30-45 min at 400 deg.

I love gratins and also prefer *less sweet* sweet potato recipes... could be good...

Ludja:

I've met John Martin Taylor on a couple of occasions. He's good friends with the owners of a restaurant where I used to work and was a Book & the Cook guest for a few years. He's the first person I ever saw deep fry a turkey and I thought (initially) it was the craziest notion I'd ever heard of. Then I tasted it. He's an excellent proponent of Carolina style "Low Country" cooking and I was always very impressed with his knowledge of that region's cuisine and his writing style.

[Mabelline]

Reading back over this I think we'll try Ludja's Rahmkren mit Eiern this weekend. It sounds like a nice change. I'll let you know how many smiles it scores.

Edited April 28, 2004 by Mabelline (log)

[JohnN]

Just this past weekend, I grated some horseradish root, mixed it with creme fraiche, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

Grinding the root starts a chemical reaction that gives the heat-- adding vinegar stops the reaction and preserves the mixture.

For Passover I grated some fresh horseradish using the food processor, then switched to the steel blade and processed it with lime peel and juice.

As usual, I feel myself feeling a bit stupid in the kitchen! :-)

My wife and I really like horseradish and one of our favorite restaurants serves their prime rib with great fresh grated horseradish (not paste style). While out shopping the other day I caught sight of some horseradish root out of the corner of my eye and brought it home with the thinking of making it the same way. They grate it with the grain so it is tiny little strings, not paste. So I clean it up, hack off the outside and run it through the "corse" Microplane, with the grain. Looked great. But, um... Well, it was dry. I started thinking maybe they soaked it before grating or something.

So I searched here and see these references to adding lemon juice and such.

So what did I do wrong? Should I soak it? Should I add lemon juice? What is this with vinegar?

Thanks,

-john

[Pitter]

This past summer I canned a horseradish/tomato salsa and it was divine. I still have 4 pints of it, and I use it almost every day. I used 24 oz fresh, grated horseradish, 8 pounds fresh tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, corriander, cumin, garlic and several onions sauteed in EVOO. The original recipe suggested cooking the horseradish with all of the other ingredients, but I added it at the last minute to keep the heat. Even so, the heat is diminished in the canning process, but the flavor is one fine thing.

[Malawry]

Sounds delicious, Pitter. What do you eat it with?

[thursdaynext]

I'm never without horseradish mustard for pork or german-style sausages! Also, a little grated horseradish is good with a medium sharp cheddar.

[Adam Balic]

I like fresh horseradish, sourcream, lemon juice and walnuts as a sauce for smoked fish and blini.

n.b. I have read that "Wasabi", the green paste in tubes isn't actually wasabi (Wasabia japonica), but is infact just dyed horseradish (the central European plant) and true wasabi is rarely found outside of Japan. Was'up with that?

[Kevin72]

Horseradish Soup  (humble soup: milk, flour, saute horseradish in butter, swirl in cream)

This is more a knock on my own cooking skills, but I made this soup a few years ago and it was one of the worst things I've ever made. I added too much horseradish and/or cooked it too long maybe? It was harsh and bitter and the whole apartment took on the smell. In fact warming it up the next day I just gagged and threw it out.

Is there something to be careful about when cooking horseradish? Does too much or too long cooking make it bitter? I've got a whole fresh root in my fridge and a few ideas about what to do but I'm wary after that last incident.

[Ruth]

What you read, as far as the "wasabi" powder is concerned, is correct. The true wasabi is available in the US but expensive. It is being cultivated in Oregon and you can order directly. I cannot remember the name of the website but you will find it easily if you google wasabi. Japanese markets sometimes have it frozen.

Interestingly enough true wasabi is much milder than the hot powder we are accustomed to.

[Adam Balic]

Ah, thank you for the information. Unfortunately I am in the UK, so the best think may be to look in the frozen food sections.

[andiesenji]

Horseradish Soup  (humble soup: milk, flour, saute horseradish in butter, swirl in cream)

This is more a knock on my own cooking skills, but I made this soup a few years ago and it was one of the worst things I've ever made. I added too much horseradish and/or cooked it too long maybe? It was harsh and bitter and the whole apartment took on the smell. In fact warming it up the next day I just gagged and threw it out.

Is there something to be careful about when cooking horseradish? Does too much or too long cooking make it bitter? I've got a whole fresh root in my fridge and a few ideas about what to do but I'm wary after that last incident.

←

Making horseradish soup is tricky, getting the right balance between the other ingredients and the horseradish requires a fine touch. I have made my share of blunders. My favorite and the easiest with which to get a good result, is in a cookbook I have had for many years and is probably out of print.

I can't find the cookbook at the moment I think it is one I packed away in storage. It is a Polish cookbook with a separate section on recipes for celebrations as the horseradish soup is traditionally served at Easter - it is considered a spring soup. It is served at the end of Lent and the soup itself is prepared separately then added to the individual serving bowls that contain kielbasa sausage and boiled potatoes, sometimes a wedge of cooked cabbage.

The horseradish has to be freshly grated, just prior to adding it to the soup.

I will try to find a similar recipe on line and will post the link later.

[andiesenji]

This recipe

is very close to the one I use.

The only difference is that mine uses less horseradish, 1/4 cup instead of 1/2 cup (no garnish) and

instead of white wine the liquid is beer, preferably one of the Polish beers such as Perla Pils, which I can usually find at one of the shops that carry international beers.