This is from my condiments cookbook, Homemade Condiments by Jessica Harlan:

Prepared Horseradish Sauce

Seek out fresh horseradish root at your local supermarket or specialty grocery store and you’ll be able to make your own fresh horseradish, a spicy ingredient to stir into everything from Bloody Marys to steak sauce. Look for horseradish root that appears to have been recently cut: the center should be white (rather than yellowish) and moist. It’s very pungent, so I recommend using food-handling gloves to work with it.

Makes about 8 ounces

1/2 pound fresh horseradish root
1/4 cup white vinegar, more if needed
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Use a paring knife or vegetable peeler to peel the hairy brown skin from the horseradish. Grate the root into a bowl with a fine box grater or rasp grater. Transfer the grated horseradish to the bowl of a food processor. Add about half the vinegar and half the salt and pulse to combine and further grind the horseradish. Add more vinegar until the mixture is fairly smooth and spreadable but not watery. Season to taste with additional salt. Keep covered in the refrigerator for up to 1 month (use a sterilized glass jar, as a plastic container will absorb the flavor and scent).

Use It For
• Season a Bloody Mary.
• Add a kick to tuna or chicken salad.
• Mix with mayonnaise and spread on rye bread for a roast beef sandwich.
• Stir into mashed potatoes.
• Mix with ketchup for a seafood dipping sauce




Cher

my kind of gardening!

Of course the first step is to grate it. From there you can combine it with some type of vinegar, mayonnaise, and/or sour cream. My favorite way to do it is to combine it with homemade sour cream and thin it down a bit with either freshly squeezed lemon juice or white wine vinegar and then season to taste with salt and pepper. I use about 3 parts sour cream to 1 part grated horseradish by volume, but you can vary the ratio depending on how strong you want it.

My sour cream is made by taking a cup of heavy cream, stirring in a Tbs of buttermilk, and let it sit out on the counter at room temperature for 24 hours in a covered mason jar. You can also find the same thing in the store sold as creme fraiche or Mexican crema.

use a food processor instead of hand-grating. I just pulse it quite fine with the regular blade on the Cuisinart, but you can also put it through a shredding blade.

I really like horseradish made with white balsamic vinegar. Seems to be a very good interaction between the two flavors.