Preserving horseradish

[Mark Rand]

I think I've worked out how to keep horseradish potent. Dry it!

It doesn't keep at all well after it's made up. It soon looses it's bite if you freeze it and all other methods I've tried have left it almost as insipid as the commercial products.

Tonight I took some root prunings from the end of 2019 that I'd stuck in with the dried chillis in dessicant and ground them up in the coffee/spice grinder (it's the sort that has a rapidly rotating blade rather shan grinding wheels). After damping the resulting powder down with some water, cream and mayonaise, the end product was, if anything, better than grated fresh horseradish.

My assumption is that the enzymes that release the hotness as the root is 'damaged' can't work in the absence of water, so the root stays fresh. Turning the dried root into dust in the coffee grinder does all the damage you could want, then adding water finishes the job and produces rocket fuel.

[burnie]

I do like fresh horseradish, but as I'm the only one in the family to eat it, I stopped growing it years ago.

[Chestnut]

Reminds me, I should get a couple of roots now we have freed up our big pot (aka bottom half of an old water butt that no longer held water). I will take note to dry it for storage ;-)

[Bren In Pots]

Not sure why but I've never tasted horseradish.

[burnie]

I had a thought to try Wasabi as well, I used to work at a Japanese car factory near Derby and several of the Japanese trainers told me it was really nice, they also liked our Horseradish.

[Plot70]

I will have to try that. There is some growing just outside the boundary of our allotments.

[ameno]

I had a thought to try Wasabi as well, I used to work at a Japanese car factory near Derby and several of the Japanese trainers told me it was really nice, they also liked our Horseradish.

It basically tastes the same as horseradish, only about twice as pungent.
Also, most "wasabi" you get given in restaurants, even ones in Japan, is actually just horseradish dyed green, rather than real wasabi. The reason being wasabi is rather difficult to grow (and therefore expensive): it's slow-growing and needs lots of water. Horseradish, on the other hand, grows like a weed.

[Nicos]

We have a few plants here and I love it...will deffo give the drying a go Mark...any tips?

Thanks for sharing!

[Mark Rand]

any tips?

Just peel it with a sharp thing or scrub the dirt off depending on how mucky the roots are. Then chop them up into chunks about 6-10mm thick and 25-40mm wide/long. Stick them in the oven at about 40°C for a few hours to pre-dry them. Then put them in a Kilner jar with silica gel.

The silica gel can be kept in a sock/couple of tights feet to keep it from going all over the place. That's far more useful with chillies than the horseradish, because as chillies dry, they crumple up and can trap balls of silica gel in the wrinkles that form...

[Nicos]

Thanks Mark....will give that a try!
(I got some silica gel sachets at Xmas with my wildlife camera trap)

[Ms-T]

Thanks Mark....will give that a try!
(I got some silica gel sachets at Xmas with my wildlife camera trap)

I think you have to use food grade silica gel sachets . but i could be wrong.

[Nicos]

Ah!... OK!
Does anyone know for sure?

[Nicos]

Would rice do as an alternative?

[nick the grief]

https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/07/...rseradish.html

Try this

[Mark Rand]

I just get loose granules off the interwebs. Doesn't say anything about food. At the end of the day, you are preserving lumps of wood (near enough). Just make sure the silica gel is dry by heating in the oven at 105-110°C for an hour or so. Don't forget that it'll be absorbing all the water from the roots, so you might need to dry it a few times over the first few weeks or months before it has completely dried the roots.