Harmony Valley Farm: Horseradish

Well friends, this is it. The final CSA box of the 2022 season. We have eaten our way through spring, summer, fall and now we will eat our way through winter as we circle back to do it all again! Thank you for coming along with us for the ride this year and I hope you’ve enjoyed the journey. This last box is packed with a lot of potential and I hope you find some delicious ways to put these vegetables to use this winter. Lets kick off this week’s Cooking With the Box article with our featured vegetable, horseradish. Our featured recipe this week is for Crispy Potato Horseradish Cakes (see below), a simple recipe that pairs well with a simple burger for dinner or serve it with fried eggs for breakfast. I also included a past recipe for homemade Prepared Horseradish, a simple means of having finely chopped horseradish ready for use in your refrigerator. Additionally, I have included more horseradish recipe suggestions gleaning ideas from around the world!

As I was researching horseradish recipes and uses this week, I came across this recipe for Pyttipanna—Swedish Hash. This is a classic Swedish dish made from diced leftover meat, potatoes, and onion. Traditionally it is served as a midweek meal, but may be served for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. The name of this dish translates to “Teeny Pieces in a Pan.” Many versions of this recipe are available on the internet, as each cook customizes it to fit their needs and likes. So, do not be afraid to improvise by substituting some of the potato with other vegetables such as carrots. This dish is traditionally served with pickled beets or gherkins.

Photo from www.swedishfood.com

I found several interesting recipes utilizing celeriac, starting with this recipe for Curried Celeriac. In sticking with inspiration from Indian cuisine, you may wish to serve it with Beetroot Chapatti.

As we move into the winter holidays, consider making this elegant Savory Potato Tart with Celeriac & Porcini Mushrooms. It’s a rich dish full of earthy flavors that would make a lovely vegetarian main dish for Christmas dinner.

Another classy vegetarian main dish recipe is Celeriac & Lentils with Hazelnuts and Mint. If you are a fan of Ottolenghi, this is one of his recipes.

I tried to include a wide variety of suggestions this week ranging from Black Bean Sweet Potato Enchiladas to Roasted Butternut Squash Pie and Cardamom Pistachio Carrot Cake. Sometimes winter roots and storage vegetables can become repetitive, but there really are so many different ways to put these winter storage vegetables to use and I guarantee that with a little bit of creative cooking, you need not grow weary of any vegetable this winter!

Thanks again for your support of our farm this season. We hope you enjoy the winter months and look forward to growing for you again next year. See you in May for ramps, asparagus and rhubarb!

—Chef Andrea

Vegetable Feature: Horseradish

by Andrea Yoder

We’re wrapping up the season with a unique vegetable that is more of a condiment and less of the main attraction. Horseradish is a bold, pungent vegetable with powerful plant compounds that give it its peppery flavor, but also have the ability to attack cancer cells and boost our immune systems. As we head into winter, horseradish is a good health ally to add to your diet and it doesn’t take much to have an effect! If you’re not so sure about trying horseradish, I ask that you proceed with an open mind and give it a try. You just might be surprised!

Horseradish is a perennial that we plant in the fall from seed pieces that are taken from cuttings when the previous crop is harvested. A nice seed piece is a straight piece usually about 8-10 inches long with the diameter of a fat pencil or a thin marker. Seed pieces grow off the main root which is the most saleable portion of the plant on the wholesale market. Any pieces that are smaller than is needed for wholesale or seed are called whips. Whips are usually thrown away, but this is actually the part of the root I prefer to work with for several reasons. First of all, I think the skin is thin and tender enough on these pieces that you don’t need to peel it. The less you have to handle horseradish, the better! I also think the whips are a more manageable size to deal with instead of a big root.

As I mentioned in the introduction, horseradish is intended to be used in small quantities as more of a condiment or accompaniment. The purpose of a condiment is to add and enhance flavor or even to introduce a new contrasting flavor to foods. Sometimes it plays its role by being incorporated into a dish while other times it may be served alongside. It may be freshly grated or chopped and added to foods, however once you start cutting, grating, or chopping horseradish you release the volatile oils that give horseradish its bite. This is when you need to make sure you have adequate ventilation to decrease the chances of your eyes tearing up. Also, make sure you wash your hands after handling horseradish, so you don’t accidently get these peppery oils in your eyes. While many recipes tell you to grate the horseradish on a box grater, this is difficult to do with the smaller whips. My recommendation is to just cut the whips into 1–2-inch pieces and chop them finely in a food processor. You could also use a blender, a hand chopper or a basic chef’s knife.

When using fresh horseradish, it’s important to chop or grate it as close to when you’re going to eat it as the volatile oils that contribute to its flavor will dissipate into the air and disappear. Once it’s chopped, you either need to eat it right away, add it into a liquid such as cream or milk that you want to infuse, or stabilize the oils so the flavor and spice remains. Often times you’ll see a recipe that calls for “Prepared Horseradish.” This refers to horseradish that is pre-chopped/grated and stabilized in a vinegar solution which sets the flavor and prevents it from dissipating. It is very easy to make “Prepared Horseradish,” and you can keep prepared horseradish in the refrigerator for several weeks like this before it will start to lose its pungency. This can be super handy to have as you can just take a teaspoon or two as needed for different recipes without having to chop it fresh every time.

Richard checking the Horseradish field

Horseradish goes well with rich and fatty foods such as salmon, beef, sausage, and ham. It also goes well with more acidic foods such as tomatoes, apples, lemons, and other citrus. It’s a good accompaniment to mild foods that give it a base, such as sour cream, cream, butter, seafood, potatoes and root vegetables. Prime rib and/or roast beef is often served with a creamy horseradish sauce. Horseradish is a key ingredient in the classic ketchup-based cocktail sauce served with poached shrimp. If you’re into Bloody Marys, you’ll know horseradish is part of this drink recipe as well.

Store your horseradish whips in the refrigerator in the bag we’ve packed them in for you. They will keep for not just weeks, but months. If you don’t like spicy things or don’t think you’ll like horseradish, consider giving it a try and just start small. Stir a little bit of freshly chopped horseradish into mayonnaise and spread it on a sandwich or make horseradish cream and drizzle it lightly over roasted root vegetables. You just might find you like that little bit of kick and flavor it adds!

Take a moment to visit our Cooking With the Box article on our blog this week where I have provided links to over 10 recipe suggestions to get you started!

Crispy Potato Horseradish Cakes

Yield: 4-6 servings

Photo from food52.com

1 onion, grated

3 large potatoes, peeled and grated

2 Tbsp all-purpose flour, plus more, as needed

2 large eggs

3Tbsp finely grated fresh horseradish

½ tsp lemon zest

¼ cup fresh dill or 1 Tbsp dried dill

¾ tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper, freshly ground

6 Tbsp olive oil

2 Tbsp unsalted butter

1 cup crème fraiche or sour cream

In a bowl, combine the onion and potato. Dust with the flour and mix to disperse it. Add the eggs, horseradish, lemon zest, dill, salt and pepper, and mix until well combined.
In a large non-stick sauté pan, heat the olive oil and butter over medium-high heat. Once the bubbles from the butter subside, spoon 3 heaping tablespoons of the potato mixture into the sauté pan. Repeat, making 8 to 12 pancakes. Cook pancakes about 4 minutes on each side, assuring that both sides are well browned and the potato is cooked through. Reduce the heat of the pan if the potato cakes are browning too quickly in order to make sure the inside is cooked completely. Remove the cakes to a paper towel lined plate as they finish, and season with salt while hot. You can cover them with foil and keep in a 200°F oven to stay warm until ready to serve.
To serve, transfer potato cakes to a platter and dollop each one with crème fraiche.

Recipe courtesy of Michael Symon as published on www.foodnetwork.com.

Wednesday, May 4, 2022

May 5, 2022 - This Week's Box Contents, Featuring Horseradish Whips and Sunchokes!

Cooking With This Week's Box

by Andrea Yoder

Ramp Pesto

Wild Ramps:
Egg Noodles in Ramp Horseradish Cream

(See Below)

Ramp Pesto
Ramp Butter

Overwintered Spinach:
Creamed Ramps & Spinach
Spinach Quiche
Spring Spinach Chop Salad with Creamy Buttermilk Ramp Dressing

Overwintered Parsnips:
Parsnip Latkes with Apple Chutney and Horseradish Yogurt
Parsnips with Brown Butter, Pecans & Maple

Overwintered Sunchokes:

Photo from: www.seasonedbysilvie.com

Sunchoke, Potato and Horseradish Soup (See Below)
Spiced Sunchokes with Masala
25 Ways to Use Jerusalem Artichokes (Sunchokes)

Chives:

43 Chive-Packed Recipes
Chive Bacon Ranch Dressing
One-Pan Chicken with Creamy Chive Sauce

Red Potatoes:

Creamy Chive Potatoes
Roasted Potatoes Tossed with Ramps

Horseradish Root:

Prepared Horseradish
Sunchoke, Potato and Horseradish Soup (See Below)
Egg Noodles in Ramp Horseradish Cream (See Below)
Parsnip Latkes with Apple Chutney and Horseradish Yogurt

Welcome to the 2022 CSA Season!

This is our weekly Cooking With the Box portion of our blog. Each week you can come here to find inspiration, recipes and ideas for ways to put every item in your box to use! I try to include a mix of new suggestions as well as reminders of recipes we’ve published over the years in our newsletters. Within our membership we have a mix of members who may be joining us for the first year or are relatively new along with seasoned members who have been with us for a decade….or more! Hopefully there will be something for everyone along the way.

Of course, I also want to remind you that we have a private Facebook Group for our CSA members. This is a great place to share recipes you have tried with other members, ask questions, and interact with our community of like-minded eaters!

I hope you enjoy this journey through the seasons. Get ready, we’re going to have a lot of great meals this year!

Chef Andrea

Vegetable Feature: Horseradish Whips and Sunchokes

by Andrea Yoder

One of the exciting parts of participating in CSA is learning to eat with the seasons. In our northern climate, spring can be a challenging time to grow vegetables. Over the years Richard has learned how to work with Mother Nature to figure out how we can eat locally and seasonally during these sometimes challenging times of the year. In the spring we turn to perennial crops like the chives in this week’s box along with asparagus, nettles and sorrel which we hope to include in the next few weeks. We also employ strategies of overwintering vegetables in the field that are then available for harvest early in the spring. This includes root vegetables such as the sunchokes and parsnips in this week’s box along with our crop of overwintered spinach. The other way we work along with Mother Nature is by foraging wild vegetables. Every spring we look forward to harvesting wild ramps from our wooded hillsides. We also hope to harvest watercress which grows in our spring-fed creeks. So while some of the vegetables in this week’s box may be unfamiliar to you, we hope you will embrace this opportunity to partner with Mother Nature in this season.

Every week throughout the season we’ll feature a vegetable in your box. This is your opportunity to learn more about vegetables you may be less familiar with, but we also use these articles to share information specific to this year’s crop as well as offer suggestions for ways you might prepare them. So, hopefully there will be helpful information for everyone from our newest members to our seasoned veterans!

This week we’re going to focus on the Horseradish Whips and Sunchokes. These crops are unique because they can both be stored for long periods of time in refrigerated storage, but they also can be overwintered in the field. Here’s how this works. We plant both of these crops from our own seed stock that we harvest in the fall. As we do our fall harvest we carefully select pieces to replant for the next year’s crop. Nearly one year later we harvest a portion of that crop to put into cold storage so we can wash and pack it for CSA boxes and wholesale orders throughout the winter. We also leave a portion of the crop in the field and return the following spring to harvest in March or April. This is one way we can work with Mother Nature to have food available throughout the winter, but also to have fresh things to harvest very early in the spring!

Horseradish whips are the thin pieces of roots that grow off the main root. You will likely never see whips being sold in a grocery store, which is quite a shame as they are very usable product! In fact, I prefer them because I can use a small portion at a time if I want to, but also because they don’t need to be peeled. Horseradish is a bold, pungent vegetable, so you do need to take care when working with it. The powerful plant compounds in horseradish that give it its peppery flavor have the ability to attack cancer cells and boost our immune systems, but they also can sting your eyes as you’re working with it! Thus, the less you have to handle it, the better. To get the most value out of horseradish, you do want to capture its pungency. To do this you need to either incorporate it into recipes, dishes, etc. in its fresh form, or you can make what is called “prepared horseradish.” To make prepared horseradish you simply need to grate or finely chop the horseradish. You can do this by hand if you like, but when you are using the whips I think it is easiest to just chop them into 1-inch pieces and blend them in a blender or food processor. Once the horseradish is finely chopped you can put it in a jar and fill the jar with vinegar to fully cover the horseradish. The vinegar helps to stabilize the compounds which will otherwise volatilize into the air and your horseradish will lose its flavor. You can store prepared horseradish in the refrigerator for quite awhile and just use it in small quantities as you need it. Horseradish is a great accompaniment for roasted meat, especially beef. It also goes well with a lot of vegetables including beets, potatoes and sunchokes. We like to grate fresh horseradish into our soup bowls before we fill them with hot soup. The flavor of the horseradish will infuse into the soup and the flavor is excellent as its at its peak. This is a good technique to use when serving hearty beef or vegetable stews, split pea soup or other hearty bean soups. In its raw form, it will store for quite awhile in the refrigerator, so don’t feel like you need to use it all within the next week or two. It will store for a month or more.

Now on to sunchokes. Sunchokes are an indigenous vegetable to North America and one that the native peoples that inhabited our lands before us included in their diets. Sunchokes are also called Jerusalem artichokes, earth apples and sunroots. They have a nutty flavor and may be eaten raw or cooked. When people ask me what you do with a sunchoke my answer is always “You can do anything with a sunchoke that you can do with a potato, plus you can eat it raw!” Sunchokes have a higher moisture content than most potatoes, which gives them a crunchy, juicy texture more similar to a water chestnut or jicama when eaten raw. They are excellent when roasted as they get crispy on the outside and are fluffy on the inside. They are also delicious incorporated into soups, stews and pan-fried.

Sunchoke Field

Now, we do need to discuss one important piece of information about sunchokes. They contain a non-digestible fiber called inulin. Inulin is found in other fruits and vegetables including asparagus, onions and bananas, however sunchokes have higher amounts than other foods. Inulin is an important prebiotic nutrient. It is an important food source for beneficial probiotic bacteria in our bodies, specifically in our large intestines. There are many benefits that stem from the synergistic effects of consuming prebiotics including improved nutrient absorption, enhanced immunity, better digestion and overall improved health and well-being. Unfortunately, the good bacteria produce gas as a byproduct when they feed on the inulin. As the host in which this is taking place, this means you may develop symptoms of gas and bloating when you eat them. So, my suggestion is to eat them in moderation as your symptoms will likely be dose-dependent, although some people don’t have any symptoms! If this is your first time trying them, just have a small portion and see what happens. I personally only eat about a ¼ cup serving at a time and feel just fine. When choosing how to use sunchokes, I like to use them along with other vegetables or in preparations where I’ll be eating them more as a condiment than as a main ingredient. For example, if you are making sunchoke soup, use a small portion of sunchokes along with potatoes. Several years ago I developed a recipe for Chile & Lime Sunchoke Salsa which is used as a condiment and eaten in smaller quantities.

Egg Noodles in Ramp Horseradish Cream

Yield: 4 Servings

Photo from: www.diaryofamadhausfrau.com

1-12 oz package of egg noodles

3 Tbsp butter

6 ramps, cleaned, trimmed and cut into bite sized pieces

1 small onion (or additional ramp bulbs), diced

1 Tbsp all-purpose flour

1 cup vegetable broth

¾ cup heavy cream

3 Tbsp prepared horseradish, drained

1-2 tsp lemon juice

Pinch of sugar

Chives, minced for garnishing

Cook the egg noodles according to the ingredients on the package. Drain and place back in the pot, cover with a lid to keep warm.
Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
Add the ramps (bulbs and leaves) and onions and cook, stirring occasionally until the onions are transparent and the ramps have softened.
Sprinkle the flour evenly over the mixture and stir to combine.
Add the cream and the vegetable broth to the skillet. Bring to a boil. Turn down the heat to low and let the mixture simmer until it thickens.
Stir in the horseradish a tablespoon at a time. Add a teaspoon or 2 of the lemon juice and the pinch of sugar. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
Place the noodles in a bowl and pour the sauce over them. Toss to combine, then garnish with chopped chives and serve.

Recipe sourced from diaryofamadhausfrau.com.

Sunchoke, Potato and Horseradish Soup

Yield: 4 Servings

Photo from: www.neantog.com

1 pound sunchokes

4 Tbsp olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

1-2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tsp sea salt and a pinch of black pepper

2 cups vegetable stock

1 medium potato, diced

1 Tbsp freshly grated horseradish

2 Tbsp chopped fresh chives

4 Tbsp cream

Spinach pesto, or any other pesto you have available, optional

Heat the oven to 375°F. Cut the sunchokes into large chunks and drizzle with about 2 Tbsp oil. Toss to combine and spread them out on a baking sheet. Bake for 30-40 minutes until tender. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.
Meanwhile, add 1-2 Tbsp olive oil to a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté for 4 minutes, then add the garlic and cook an additional minute. Add the stock and potato, bring to a boil, then simmer for about 10 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.
When the sunchokes are cooled slightly, transfer to a food processor or blender. Add some of the cooked potatoes and a little of the vegetable stock and process until smooth. If you want a perfectly smooth soup, blend all of the portion of soup that was cooked with the potatoes in the saucepan. If you prefer a more coarse, rustic soup, just puree enough to blend the sunchokes.
Return the processed mixture to the saucepan and heat gently. Stir in the freshly grated horseradish and season with salt and black pepper. Simmer for a few minutes before tasting and adjust the seasoning to your preference.
Ladle the soup into bowls and top each with a tablespoon of cream. Drizzle each bowl with pesto if you are using it and garnish with fresh chives.

Recipe sourced from www.neantog.com.

Wednesday, December 15, 2021

December 16, 2021 - This Week's Box Contents, Featuring Horseradish!

Cooking With This Week's Box

Horseradish Whips:

Prepared Horseradish (See Below)

Fresh Horseradish Roasted Potato Salad (See Below)

Norwegian-Style Cod (See Below)

Horseradish Deviled Eggs

Horseradish Hash Browns

Speedy Shrimp with Horseradish Butter

Red and Yellow Onions:

Roasted Beet, Caramelized Onion & Goat Cheese Tart

Photo from migrainereliefrecipes

Red Onion & Blood Orange Salad

Italian and/or Porcelain Garlic:

Raw Honey Garlic Lemon Shot

Garlic-Honey Toddy for Cold & Flu Season

Covington Sweet Potatoes:

Sweet Potato Curry

Sweet Potato Kim Chi Pancakes

Potatoes (Russets, German Butterball, Gold Carola or Asterix):

The Ultimate Creamy Potato Soup

Easy Roasted Chicken Thighs with Potatoes

Tetsukabuto Squash:

Kabocha Squash Bread with Toasted Walnut Cinnamon Swirl

One-Pot Kabocha Squash & Chickpea Curry

Photo from everydayhealthyrecipes

Kohlrabi or Heart of Gold Squash:

Polish Kohlrabi Soup

Orange Carrots:

Carrot Scones with Walnuts

Roasted Root Vegetable Soup

Red Beets:

Classic Beef Borscht

Carrot & Beet Morning Glory Muffins with Honey & Hazelnuts

Celeriac:

26 of the Best Celeriac Recipes

Meatballs with Celeriac and Apples

Beauty Heart Radishes:

Beauty Heart Radish Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

Beauty Heart Radish Toasts with Cream Cheese, Lemon & Honey

Photo from halfbakedharvest

Scarlet Turnips:

Root Vegetable Casserole (Freezer Friendly)

Cornish Pasties (Meat Hand Pies)

Green Savoy Cabbage:

Crispy Sesame Ginger Egg Rolls

Palestinian Style Stuffed Savoy Cabbage Rolls

Hello Everyone—

This is it, the 30th vegetable box of the 2021 CSA Season! Can you believe it?! We’ve gone all the way from ramps and asparagus to fresh sweet corn and tomatoes and now we’re wrapping up the season with a box full of storage vegetables to carry you into a new year! Thank you for journeying through another CSA season. I truly hope you’ve enjoyed the meals you’ve created and perhaps you’ve gathered some new recipes to add to your collection of favorites!

We’re going to wrap up this season with a bold feature vegetable—horseradish! My top suggestion is the same every year we put this item in the box. I think the easiest thing to do is make Prepared Horseradish (See Below) that you can keep in your refrigerator and use as needed. But this week I challenged myself to find some other interesting recipes and included this Fresh Horseradish Roasted Potato Salad (See Below) and Norwegian-Style Cod (See Below).

Root vegetables is the name of the game for the next few months, so here’s a few recipes I wanted to share with you. First, if you don’t know what to do with celeriac, check out this article entitled 26 of the Best Celeriac Recipes. Make a big pot of Classic Beef Borscht and put those red beets to use! I think it’s time to switch from cold sandwiches for lunch to these Cornish Pasties (Meat Hand Pies). They are easy to make and you can put nearly any root you have in them!

Photo from allthatjas.com

I also wanted to highlight a few recipes that were shared in the Facebook Group lately. I can’t wait to try this recipe for Palestinian Style Stuffed Savoy Cabbage Rolls. I’m also looking forward to trying this Polish Kohlrabi Soup. Thank you to everyone who participates in the group. I love seeing what you’re cooking and it’s exciting to find new recipe resources!

Finally, as I sign off for the winter, I want to wish you a winter full of rejuvenation, rest and good health. Keep eating your vegetables, every day. They are our nourishment, but they are also our daily medicine. If you feel like you need a little extra immune boost, maybe garlic is what your body needs. I have this recipe for Raw Honey Garlic Lemon Shot and also this

Garlic-Honey Toddy for Cold & Flu Season tucked away and plan to pull them out with the first sniffle!

Ok, that’s a wrap! We look forward to growing for you again in 2022, so don’t delay. Take care of that 2022 CSA Sign up in January or February and you’ll earn our Early Bird Coupon to use for a future HVF purchase! Have a great winter and I’ll see you back her in 4 short months!

--Chef Andrea

Vegetable Feature: Horseradish

by Andrea Yoder

Description: Horseradish is a bold, pungent vegetable that has the power to make you cry, take your breath away and open every nasal passage you have—that is if you work with and/or eat it in large quantities. The powerful plant compounds in horseradish that make you do all those things are also the compounds that give horseradish its peppery flavor, have the ability to attack cancer cells and boost our immune systems.

Harvesting Horseradish

Growing Information: Horseradish is a perennial that we plant in the fall from seed pieces that are taken from cuttings when the previous crop is harvested. A nice seed piece is a straight piece usually about 8-10 inches long with the diameter of a fat pencil or a thin marker. Seed pieces grow off the main horseradish root which is the most saleable portion of the plant on the wholesale market. Any pieces that are smaller than is needed for wholesale or seed are called whips. Whips are usually thrown away, but this is actually the part of the root I prefer to work with for several reasons. First of all, I think the skin is thin and tender enough on these pieces that you don’t need to peel it. The less you have to handle horseradish, the better! I also think the whips are a more manageable size to deal with instead of a big root. This week your box contains a 4 ounce bundle of horseradish whips.

Richard in the Horseradish field

Preparation & Use: Horseradish is intended to be used in small quantities, as a condiment or an accompaniment to enhance foods. It may be freshly grated or chopped and added to foods, however once you start cutting, grating or chopping horseradish you release the volatile oils that give horseradish its bite. This is when you need to make sure you have adequate ventilation to decrease the chances of your eyes tearing up. Also, make sure you wash your hands after handling horseradish so you don’t accidently get these peppery oils in your eyes. While many recipes tell you to grate the horseradish on a box grater, this is difficult to do with the smaller whips. My recommendation is to just cut the whips into 1-2 inch pieces and chop them finely in a food processor. You could also use a blender, a hand chopper or a basic chef’s knife.

When using fresh horseradish, it’s important to chop or grate it as close to when you’re going to eat it as the volatile oils will dissipate into the air and disappear. Once it’s chopped, you either need to eat it right away or stabilize the oils so the flavor and spice remains. Often times you’ll see a recipe that calls for “Prepared Horseradish.” This refers to horseradish that is pre-chopped/grated and stabilized in a vinegar solution which sets the flavor and prevents it from dissipating. This week I’ve included a recipe for prepared horseradish. You can keep prepared horseradish in the refrigerator for several weeks in a sealed jar before it will start to lose its pungency. This can be super handy to have as you can just take a teaspoon or two as needed for different recipes without having to chop it fresh every time.

Horseradish Whips

Horseradish goes well with rich and fattier foods such as salmon, beef, sausage and ham. It also goes well with more acidic foods such as tomatoes, apples, lemons and other citrus. It’s a good accompaniment to bland foods that give it a base, but make horseradish look and taste good—foods such as sour cream, cream, butter, seafood, potatoes and root vegetables.

Lastly, if you don’t like spicy things or don’t think you’ll like horseradish, just start small. Stir a little bit of freshly chopped horseradish into mayonnaise and spread it on a sandwich or make horseradish cream and drizzle it lightly over roasted root vegetables.

Storage: On the internet you’ll see references that say horseradish should be eaten within 1-2 weeks…..my friends, I think that’s wrong. Your horseradish whips will store much, much longer than 1-2 weeks if you keep them in a bag in the refrigerator. To give you a frame of reference, we harvest horseradish the latter part of October. In many years, we’ve held horseradish in cold storage for months and sell it all throughout the winter! Don’t be afraid of a little fuzzy white mold on the surface either. It’s not uncommon to see this after extended time in the refrigerator. If you see that happening, but the integrity of the root is still good, just wash it off.

Prepared Horseradish

Yield: 1—half pint jar

3 oz fresh horseradish whips

4 Tbsp distilled white vinegar

¼ tsp salt

Sugar, pinch

Cut the horseradish whips into chunks and place them in the food processor. Pulse to grind. It will be a bit dry, something like coconut. Add the vinegar, salt and sugar.
Have a clean and sterilized jar with a lid and canning ring available nearby.
Add the vinegar, salt and sugar. Blend to combine well.
Pack the horseradish into the jar and refrigerate.

Recipe adapted from The Kitchen Ecosystem by Eugenia Bone.

Norwegian-Style Cod with Horseradish

Yield: 2-4 servings

2 Tbsp butter

2 tsp vegetable oil

1 pound cod fillet

1 tsp salt

½ cup freshly grated horseradish

Heat the butter and oil in a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat until the butter begins to brown. Throw down ½ tsp of salt into the hot pan and immediately place the fish over it. Sprinkle the top of the fish with the remaining ½ tsp of salt. Cover the skillet (if your skillet does not have a lid, use a lid from another pot or just a piece of aluminum foil) and cook over medium-high heat until the fish begins to look opaque, about 4 minutes.
Remove the lid, and with a spatula as long as the fillet, carefully flip the fish. Sprinkle the horseradish over the fish and lower the heat to medium. To be sure the fish doesn’t burn, it’s a good idea to check that there is enough fat remaining in the pan; add a bit more butter if necessary. Re-cover the pan and continue to cook 3 to 4 minutes more, until the fish is flaky but still moist. Using the large spatula, carefully transfer the fish to a platter. Serve immediately.

This recipe comes from Darra Goldstein’s book, Fire & Ice: Classic Nordic Cooking.

Fresh Horseradish Roasted Potato Salad

Yield: 4 servings

1 pound potatoes, cut into ¾” cubes

1 pound sweet potatoes, cut into ¾” cubes

1 tsp salt, plus more to taste

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1-2 Tbsp olive oil

3 Tbsp sour cream or crème fraiche, plus more if needed

1-2 Tbsp freshly grated horseradish

1 handful fresh dill, chopped or 2 Tbsp dried dill

Preheat the oven to 400°F. In a large bowl, combine both kinds of potatoes, 1 tsp salt, freshly ground black pepper, and olive oil. Stir or toss to coat well. Pour onto a sheet pan and spread out into a single layer. Roast on the middle rack, turning every so often until nicely caramelized, about 30-40 minutes.
When the potatoes are done, remove them from the oven and let cool for about five minutes. In the meantime, grate the horseradish into the sour cream and stir. Pour over the potatoes and combine well. Adjust for salt and pepper and dill. Serve immediately at room temperature or eat it chilled.

Recipe borrowed from food52.com.