One of my favorite painful activities of the year harvesting and processing horseradish. Got a medium sized crop this year, mainly due to me pulling the big roots last year. This year i am putting down my third planting area, the plan being that i have enough plants that i can leave the pencil thick roots to develop into the following year for harvesting. to grow good size roots you need to have pencil size roots this fall to harvest thick roots next year. I am trying to relocate my horseradish so the pencil ones i move into the new patch and process the rest. For those that struggle with making horseradish this is what i do. wash and peel the roots, trimming out in black spots or bits of dirt. chop the roots into 1 cm pieces. *the painful bit, the aroma off the hoseradish is super hot and will bring tears to your eyes, using it blender keeps it sealed. but it helps to have a window open * in a foot blender (Blender is better than processor in my view) blitz it down. [This is one of the steps to control heat the hotter you want it the small the pieces need to be] I like mine super hot so I blitz hard. The root is quite dry and after a while you wont be able chop it any more. [this is the second stage of heat control] at this point the enzymes in the root are working 100% developing the heat compounds. So i suggest leaving it to stand for 5 mins at this stage. You now need to stop the enzyme reaction and add some preservative. So make a mix of 50:50 water white vinegar and slowly add it to the horseradish. Blitz till you get a smooth texture. I then make one small pot for the fridge and the rest into a container in the freezer, or ice cube tray and bag. If you find the horseradish too hot you can mix it with other ingredients but i was plesantly surprised that i could use the above method and produce a creamy horseradish with no extra ingredients.
Hi Dan, thanks for the info. This will be my first year processing horseradish. Do I really need to wait for the frost to get the leaves before digging? I don't get a deep freeze here in Va. So can I dig any time this winter?
I find the leaves are quite robust, i still had good leaves on my plants when i dig them up. So I typically wait till there has been 3 ground frosts before digging them up. its a fine balance here because if i leave it too long the ground will freeze solid and i cant get a spadein.
AHHHH, thanks Dan, I have never done anything with my horseradish because I didn't know what to do. this is a big help. I always BUY it even though I grow it. I guess I'll now get busy with it. can this be canned this way instead of frozen?
Wow, this is very good. I have horseradish and name it one time. It wasn't hot at all and I was disappointed. Maybe it was because I added vinegar right away. I love it. Now I will go got and dig mine up soon. Thank you soo much. Carolyn, I have looked and looked for a safe recipe to can it and everyone says not to. I have frozen it and kept it in the fridge for quite a while. Barb in Pa.
Interesting Barb, I have always bought it from the refrigerator section of the grocery store, in a jar, and assumed it was canned. Maybe the lid was just twisted on tight. I'll have to check that. thanks.
great thread dan! we love horseradish nd i'm trying to get a good patch going...we have two doing nicely now. one other way to make it super hot is to dehydrate shavings of it and then rehydrate with the more vinegar than water solution. makes it wicked hot!
Glad you liked the post guys. Hi carolyn, barb is right there are very few instructions for canning. Mainly because it will change flavour and texture on cooking even for a short time with canning. So your main preservative method is the vinegar you add to the mix and freezing. We use quite a bit of horseradish through the year and 2 pint jars lasted us nicely decanting from frozen into a fridge jar. if you want more info on horseradish i found this site to provide great information. http://tomclothier.hort.net/page22.html
I could never find anything on really canning horseradish. My hubby says it's cause it's the texture of real radishes or celery and it would just become sludge or slime when canned. I know we think it's canned in the grocery store but it's always in the refrigerator section and not really canned. Although it lasts forever in the fridge once you open it (or make it). I guess I'll get to mine this weekend. It still has good green growth on it today. Barb in Pa.
Thank you so much for the info. I can't wait until a hard frost here so I can process it. Mine is never hot enough, but I will try BLITZ, sounds good.
