Horsing Around with Horseradish

This months herb group meeting was so much fun! Although, someone might not think so if they just peered in the windows! lol Horseradish makes your eyes tear and your nose run, while processing it. We all had to leave the room periodically, for some fresh air. I do know that everyone who came to the meeting with stuffy, stopped up sinus issues, left feeling better from the good clean out horseradish fumes gave them!! :)

That’s Steve. Look at his poor face! Tears just a streaming! We have been having the last few meetings in his outbuilding. I think he was the winner for lasting the longest in the processing room, without a break.

The first step in processing horseradish is to dig your horseradish. We all got ours dug and pooled out resources. Here is Eric with our root we brought

The first thing we did was put them all in a big tub of water, and gave them a good scrubbing with the scrub brushes. Then these rough cleaned roots are put into another pan of water. Then it is time to peel them with knives or vegetable peelers and cut them down to a size that will fit into our hand crank grinder.

We took this rough grated horseradish and then placed it in a regular blender, added white vinegar till it was just a bit below the level of the root, added a good shake of fruit fresh, another of salt and gave it a whirl! Here is Steve pouring some into one of the jars

Now you wouldn’t have to do the blender part if you didn’t want to. You could leave it coarser and then add your other ingredients to suit you. Or you could do like some folks preferred and really blend it down totally smooth. Just a matter of preference really.

We all just took turns rotating around to the different jobs and dashing to the other room to blow our nose and wipe our tears, and recover with some hot chocolate and cookies :)

We made so much that all of us had plenty of horseradish to take home.

Unfamiliar with the history of horseradish? Have a look at what Maude Grieve’s A Modern Herbal has to say about it here. I can sure vouch for its fumes clearing out your head! lol

Big hugs to all of you who visit here at Comfrey Cottages