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I was looking at all the horseradish overgrowing the garden and remembered having come across this recipe. So I figured, what the heck! The worst that could happen is that I waste some energy and sugar.
I dug up as much of the horseradish as I could - most of it was at best the thickness of a straw - cleaned it up, and tried the recipe out. It smelled a bit strange while cooking, so I was a bit apprehensive as I took the first taste. Wow! Instead of having the spicy flavor I expected, it was wonderfully sweet and mellow. There was a touch of caramel flavor from the sugar, very reminiscent of toasted marshmallows. My wife says I can make as much of it as I like.
I used sugar instead of honey because I was expecting something like crystalized ginger. As soon as enough horseradish grows back in the garden I'll try again with honey.
Ingredients
1/4 cup fresh horseradish (approx.)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
Method
Wash and scrape horseradish until it's clean and white. Cut into two inch strips about half the thickness of a pencil. Place in lightly salted, boiling water and cook until tender - about 15 minutes. Drain and set aside. Put water and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat and bring to a boil. Add horseradish and reduce heat to keep it at a low simmer, stirring regularly. If you use chopsticks to stir the pieces around then you can easily test the syrup to see if it forms soft threads. When it does, remove the pan from heat and take out the horseradish pieces one at a time and lay on a wire rack to dry briefly. Coat each piece with sugar and store in an airtight container.
Source [Libre de Totes Maneres de Confits]: CAPITOL .VIIJ.e PER CONFEGIR LO RAVE GUALESCH Pendreu lo rave gualesch e reu lo e feu lo net be ab aygua. E apres telar l eu menut tot, e apres metreu lo al foch ab aygua e metreu hi un bon puny de sall e bulla tant que sia ben mol. E apres treureu lo n e metreu lo en aygua freda .viiij.o jorns mudant tots jorns l aygua. E, com sia be deselat, aureu fussa vostra mell, e, ben escumada axi com dit es, metreu lo ab la mel o axerop e bulira ferm tro que lo axerop sia fet que fassa fills. E a mester en una llr. de rava galesch .j. llr. de mel.
Chapter Eight To Candy Horseradish. Take the horseradish and scrape it and make it clean with water. And then chop it all finely, and then put it on the fire with water and add a good handful of salt and boil it enough so that it is very soft. And then take it and put it in cold water for nine days, changing the water each day. And, once all the salt is removed, have your honey made, and, well skimmed as it is said before, add it all to the honey or syrup and boil it rapidly so that the syrup is done when it makes threads. And for one pound of horseradish one pound of honey is enough. (Vincent Cuenca, trans.)
Published: January 09, 2006
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