[Sca-cooks] de Nola freaks - Horseradish

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

I wrote:
>  > And the time i put a huge honkin' raw horseradish root in a food
>  > processer to make a puree - whew! has to open the windows for quite a
>  > long time! It was for a sauce from de Nola. In addition to the
>  > horseradish, it included almonds and white wine with a little sugar
>  > and a little salt and it came out delicious and relatively mild. But
>  > the first step in processing it was painful, indeed.

And Vicente queried:
>Huh?  Which sauce was that?  The only horseradish sauce I remember from
>de Nola is the variation on parsley sauce: vinegar, bread, water, honey, and
>grated horseradish.  Sweet, sour, and pungent, and oh so good with roast
>beef.
>
>Vicente (the other de Nola freak on the list)

Aargh! Aargh! Aargh! Wrong feast, wrong feast, wrong feast, Will Robinson!
It was for the *German* Boar Hunt, not the Catalan course of the
Mediterranean Tour feast.
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

The recipe is on my website, but since it's now under discussion, here it is:

Horseradish sauce
Ein Buch von Guter Spise
German, 14th c.

2. A good sauce to make in the Fast. Item. Take horseradish and pound
it in a mortar and take almond kernels or nuts and pound them also
and pour a wine therein. Horseradish brings the stone very much, when
one eats it in the food.

5 cups ground horseradish root
2-1/2 cups ground almonds
4 cups dry white wine
1 TB salt
1/4 cup sugar

1. Grind horseradish until fairly fine.
2. Add almonds and wine.
3. Let stand overnight.
4. Season with salt and sugar, to taste.

NOTE: I made this a couple days ahead of time, which gave it a chance
to mellow a bit, so it wouldn't be as harsh as what i made last year.
It has a nice creamy flavor. I rather like it mixed with the
Swallenberg Sauce.

This was one of several sauces served with roast pork.

NOTES: I don't remember how much my root weighed. It was at least a
foot, if not a foot and a half long, and around 3 inches in diameter.
I washed it, heck, i scrubbed it. Then i peeled it. Then i cut it in
large chunks. I was temporarily rooming with some folks who had an
amazing super-blender (i forget the name, but it has been discussed
on this list - expensive, but WAAAY powerful), which made rapid work
of the root. The kitchen rapidly became nearly uninhabitable, before
i'd even finished grinding it, and i rushed to open all the windows
and the back door.

Anahita