Recipe: Make Your Own Horseradish

Horseradish… dispense with the jarred stuff

By: Tom DiGangi, Jr.

After my wife walked into the house smiling broadly and displaying an enormous quantity of horseradish from the garden, I was curious. After reading the ingredients on a jar of store bought horseradish in our refrigerator, I was inspired. Why don’t we make our own?

A bit of research and a few minutes later, we were comparing our own homemade horseradish to the stuff from the jar. The difference was remarkable. Ours was, for lack of a better word, pure. The jarred horseradish was eggy and sweet, in an unpleasing way. And, the heat difference was remarkable. The homemade product was hot, a good hot. The kind of hot that makes you want to eat, then eat more, then wipe your brow and when you’re done, blow your nose. That’s worth making your own horseradish.

Horseradish (Basic Preparation)

Ingredients

1 Large Piece of Horseradish (about 5 inches)

3 T. Water

3 T. White Vinegar

Kosher Salt to taste

Procedure

Peel the horseradish with a vegetable peeler, roughly chop and add to a food processor or blender with the water and salt. Puree until smooth. Add the vinegar and puree again. If you want the final product HOT, then wait a few minutes before adding the vinegar because the acidity halts the development of heat.

Adjust the seasoning with salt. Serve immediately or store in the refrigerator for a month or more.

How Not To Grow Horseradish

I had read quite a bit on the topic by the time I trotted out of the Agway with my sandwich sized paper bag full of small stick-like horseradish roots. The main information I had taken away after skimming through a variety of sources was this: horseradish runs. Put it in the vegetable garden and those delicious underground roots will spread everywhere without concern for the rest of your plants. Some articles suggested growing them in large whiskey barrel buckets, and others suggested pots sunk into the ground. I had both my thinking cap and my smarty pants on (as they say in Sophia's preschool class) when I took three of my sticks and buried one each in various plastic pots and in turn buried the pots in different part of my garden. Therefore, let me share my tried and true knowledge about how (not) to plant horseradish.

1.) Buy horseradish roots for planting in early spring, at the same time that stores are selling seed potatoes and asparagus roots.

2.) Plant horseradish at a 45 degree angle with the growing tip pointing up. The growing tip should be only a few inches below the ground. Plant in a pot with rich garden soil, and then bury the pot in the garden up to the lip.

3.) Ignore it.

4.) The following year, notice that the topgrowth is not very significant and blame the store where you purchased them. Repeat step three.

5.) The year after that, notice that the topgrowth is better and think you ought to re-read about what you're supposed to do about it. Get distracted by brightly colored bug, or diseased crop, or wayward rodent. Remember horseradish, but join Facebook while surfing web for harvest instruction. Stop doing anything useful in life. Repeat step three.

6.) The year after that, notice topgrowth is huge! Dig up pots in late fall after first frost, only to find that horseradish was given ample time for the roots to find their way out of the (probably not deep enough) pot through the drainage holes, and is now either headed for the asparagus bed or to the Earth's core.

7.) Curse. Dig up as much of escaped root as possible, and wonder what spicy hot asparagus will taste like. Cut side shoots for processing, and replant main root in the same pathetic pot, vowing to deal with it in spring. Wonder how difficult horseradish will be to mow. Go back in the house and play Mafia Wars, or Word Twist, or Farmville, or any other stupid thing people are doing on Facebook. Tell husband you are an idiot.

OR, alternatively, you can follow the above instructions except for step 3, and harvest the roots yearly, replanting some of them for next year's crop. You probably should also not join Facebook, or start playing Mafia Wars, but that's more of a marriage counseling tip than a gardening suggestion. Just sayin'.

Recipe: Potato & Leek Soup ... kinda

by Tom DiGangi, Jr.

After a long absence, we returned home to the garden on the weekend after Thanksgiving. The morning temperature was 31F, the first freeze. Yet, the garden was still doing its thing. We pulled up some leeks, celery and horseradish, which were still doing fine. Then we grabbed some potatoes and garlic that were harvested earlier in the year and stored in the basement. Time for lunch!

If you are interested in traditional potato and leek soup, I highly recommend the recipe by Paul Bocuse presented in French Chefs Cooking. It is great, classic and clean. It is a staple in our house, and we cannot improve upon it. The following recipe is not traditional, but based on the founding premise of the Bocuse classic.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 Leeks, white parts only sliced thin

1 Stalk Celery, white stalk from the heart of the plant sliced thin

2 Yukon Gold Potatoes, peeled and sliced thin

2 T. Butter

1 Quart Turkey or Chicken Stock, enough to cover the vegetables

2 T. Heavy Cream

1 T. Homemade Horseradish (see other entry for recipe)

2 T. Freshly Minced Celery Leaves

Kosher Salt to taste

Procedure:

Melt the butter in a pot and add the sliced leeks and celery stalk. It is important to only use the white parts of the leeks and celery to ensure the soup retains its white color. Sweat the vegetables for a few minutes to soften. Add the sliced potatoes, season well with salt and stir. Add the stock, using enough to cover the vegetables. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and let cook for about 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are soft.

Puree the soup in a blender or food processor. Press the pureed soup through a sieve. If the soup is too thick for your liking, thin with a little water or milk. If too thin, return it to the pot and reduce over low heat until your desired result is reached. When the consistency is correct, add the heavy cream, horseradish and finely minced celery leaves.

Serve with crostini (toasted bread) that has been rubbed with a clove of garlic and drizzled with melted butter. As for wine, serve with anything you like because butter and potato marry with virtually everything.

The Last Harvest

Clearly, we spent the fall doing a bit more than blogging. Tom wrote a lovely article about corn that should have been published in September, but I couldn't find a proper corn related picture that I liked, and got distracted. October's article should have been all about the awesome take from our herb garden and the experimental ways we tried to preserve it, including freezing, drying, pureeing with sugar, and potting up entire plants. November? Well, we weren't at home until the end of November, and the garden should have been rife with neglect and littered with destruction by the time we returned. Instead, that early spring labor paid off, and quite a few of our crops were not only producing, but still at their best.

Although the ground was not yet frozen, our zone 6 garden must have had a few frosty nights. The basil was a toasty black color and the summer vines were a twisted mass of decay. Helpful worms had skeletonized my fall cauliflower bed. The parsley was still a beautiful vibrant green, while the leeks, swiss chard and celery were perfectly healthy. The tops of the horseradish had died back which meant it was time for harvesting. Had we planted any kale or mustard greens, those too would be more flavorful after a frost.

Therefore, I think we will spend the cold Northeast winter bragging about our harvest, as absurd as that sounds considering the current layer of icy rain covering the ground. We have some lost time to make up for. We also have the inclination to spend time with our family, stoking the fire, creating meals from our harvest, and idly dreaming about the rebirth of the spring garden. I hope you join us!