Perennial Food Garden Series - Horseradish

I love hot, spicy food, but to grow most spices you usually need a hot climate and a long growing season to produce the fiery tasting flavors such as chili powder, black pepper, and cayenne pepper. But you can achieve that hot zing with horseradish prepared as a condiment and you can easily grow this perennial vegetable in your garden.

Horseradish roots can be purchased at local nurseries, on-line at plant and seed grower sites, and through mail order catalogs. It's a vegetable, but some growers put it in the herb section. I've noticed in recent catalogs that some growers, such as Stark Brothers, are offering a package deal for horseradish, rhubarb, and asparagus. That's a fine idea! All three of those vegetables are in my Perennial Food Garden Series.

Horseradish can be planted in spring or fall and is a fast, easy grower. Actually, you can grow horseradish too easily! While I recommend transplanting and dividing all of the plants in my Perennial Garden Series, such as sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes), lovage, rhubarb, and strawberries, I strongly advise that you never transplant or divide horseradish! This rapidly spreading vegetable can take over your garden without much help from you, so don't encourage it - limit where you want it and carefully keep it there.

In my garden, horseradish is allotted a four-foot square plot. The invasive roots spread underground, so any shoots developing outside that box are nipped or pulled out at first sighting.

And beware - any cuttings or pieces of horseradish tuber will take root just about anywhere they can touch earth, so don't put them in your compost or any place on your property where you don't want them to grow. If you do get rogue horseradish growing, keep it mowed or sheared down and eventually it might give up.

After about three months growth in the summer, the mature horseradish plants will be quite tall - about three to four feet high, and sport beautiful green leaves. Horseradish leaves can be harvested and cooked like cabbage or mustard greens, but they can be a bit tough and require lots of seasoning to achieve a palatable taste. Still, cooked and creamed, they can make a flavorful side dish or soup.

A peaking horseradish plant will send up a white flower mid-summer, which you can leave on the plant to admire in your garden or snip a bunch and use as a huge flower display in the house.

Once the roots are established, you can take cuttings all summer long, but for the first year, you should wait until fall before you cut.

Now comes the fun part - using horseradish roots. Like onions, these roots emit very little aroma until they are cut, and then look out - as you grate, you will get tears in your eyes and a zing up your nose!

To make a classic horseradish sauce, simply grate the roots and add vinegar, cream, or mayonnaise (or a combination of all three) to create a thick paste. You can make your sauce thinner to pour it over other foods, or keep it thick to pile on the side of the main dish or use as a veggie dip. This white horseradish sauce pairs excellently with beef, but can also be used to add tang to sandwiches, fish, potatoes, and other vegetables.

In the 'international cuisine' aisles of your grocery store, you'll see jars of red colored shredded horseradish - it's mixed with beets and vinegar and is slightly sweet rather than hot and spicy. You can make this tasty condiment at home as well (especially if you are growing beets). In many European countries, the red horseradish sauce is considered a traditional Easter condiment.

Most people are familiar with the white sauce, but many don't realize that horseradish is what gives that spicy bite they taste in cocktail sauce for seafood, the classic brunch drink - Bloody Mary, and even the green 'wasabi' served in Japanese restaurants with sushi. To make 'Western wasabi', just add green food coloring to your finely grated horseradish roots! (Personally, I also make 'sushi' at home, but it's a cucumber roll without raw fish).

Preserving horseradish is easy. You can put cut roots in the refrigerator and they will last about three months. When they get soft or discolored, it's time to discard them. If you've made sauces with vinegar and jarred them, they will last about three months - it's time to throw them out when they turn brown.

By the way, if you are serving white horseradish sauce as a condiment, be sure to let your guests know what it is! Why? Well, many years ago I was having dinner in a Manhattan restaurant with a gentleman from a middle eastern country who happened to order the roast beef dinner. After a few bites, he was making disgusted faces and waving to the waiter. He raved that the food was spoiled and wanted the dish taken away immediately. The horrified waiter took the plate away and brought another with the same result. My friend's face was contorted as he asked me to taste the mashed potatoes - now he wasn't sure what he was eating! Yes, dear reader, to the unaccustomed palate, a big bite of horseradish sauce when you are expecting mashed potatoes is a nasty shocker!

Horseradish more than meets my Perennial Garden Food Series criteria - it grows fast, needs little care, produces amazing amounts of edible roots the first season you plant it, reproduces easily, survives harsh winters, returns year after year, is easily preserved, and is a versatile food for the creative chef. And try cooking the greens too!

Horseradish - make it your homegrown 'hot spice of life' food!

The Perennial Food Garden Series highlights fruits, vegetables, and herbs that are easily grown, mature rapidly, are prolific in production, versatile in recipes, and return year after year. The series highlights the top perennials to create a perfect food garden that is economical to start and easy to maintain.