When I was a kid, I was the fussiest little thing any parent could hope to avoid. Not a vegetable, nor anything green, would pass my lips, and until the age of at least thirteen I survived largely on a diet of Haribo and chips. Worst of all if anything was vaguely ‘weird’ – this meant extracting gherkins from McDonalds burgers with much complaint – and all strong flavours were off the cards. Horseradish became enemy number one, striking even more fear into my heart than even the most overcooked cauliflower could muster. Every Sunday, my parents would settle down to lunch and proceed to, in my young eyes at least, ruin a beautiful joint of beef with swathes of horseradish sauce, going so far as to commit the cardinal sin of blighting even Yorkshire puds with this foul concoction.
So why, I hear you ask, am I here to defend what was once my worst enemy, bringing misery to my every weekend? Much as I’ve learned to enjoy good wine and the company of beautiful women in time, the joys of horseradish is one of those things that I’ve only managed to love as I’ve grown older. This humble root is not native to the UK, but in true British fashion we have adopted and embraced it to make it a central part of our food culture, which I now realise is wholly sensible.
Even if you buy a ready-made sauce, which is of course the easy option, what can you do with your horseradish? Although tradition demands it should accompany a good beef roast – this is indeed a wonderful thing – the versatility of horseradish sauce goes way beyond Sunday lunch. One of my favourite sandwiches has to be smoked mackerel piled into a crispy white baguette that has been spread liberally with horseradish sauce. Think beyond the confines of British towards the plant’s Asian roots, however, and you can have all sorts of gastronomic fun. I personally loathe wasabi paste, or at least the processed stuff we get in tubes over here, being as it is a hit of heat with little flavour of its own. Replace it with horseradish sauce, however, and you get the spicy kick sushi so badly needs but with a depth of flavour unmatched by the native Japanese offering.
So, I implore you, forget all you have been taught and rescue horseradish from lm, the doldrums of Sunday cooking – even if you are determined you hate it, I promise you won’t regret it.
