Last year, the town where I live hosted the International Convention of Germans from Russia for the first time since the organization began. The selfie station with the organization logo featured a life-size cutout of a Bactrian camel. One of my indulgent purchases in the pop-up bookstore was a tiny stuffed Dromedary camel (pictured below). The cookbooks for sale were mostly ones that I already have, or that contain the same recipes, so I could not justify buying more. (More about the camels later.) I had signed up for the meals provided at the venue and the horseradish served there on day one was memorable enough that I had to come home and buy some horseradish, experiment with and write about it.
This is the rivvelkuchen that I remember. It’s also called Russian cake or crumb-topped coffee cake or streussel something-or-other. The name isn’t that important.
A lot of people on internet threads now fight intensely over the proper ingredients, nationalities and spellings of food names. Eastern Europe has many different countries. Borders, languages and groups of people have changed many times through the centuries. If that’s how your family made a food, and what your grandma called it, that tradition is true for you. If you claim that yours is the ONLY correct way, I will disagree. Someone else from the same area might have a completely different recipe, tradition and name for the same dish. Both of you are right. My grandmother called her crumb-topped coffee cake rivvelkuchen; one of my cookbooks calls it “Russian cake.” The internet calls it streusel something. ToMAYto ... toMAHto … It’s not worth fighting about. If I tried to list all the names for horseradish in all the European languages, we’d never get down to the recipes.
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Lunch the first day of the convention featured horseradish cream on black rye bread with sliced beef. It was memorable for nuclear sinus-clearing, eye-watering intensity that put any pharmaceutical decongestant to shame. I suspected that there were more user-friendly ways to use it, depending on the strength you want. So I bought a jar and went to work with some kitchen experiments. The first one here was my favorite.
A gentle-ish version of horseradish cream is made with:
3 heaping Tbsp. mayonnaise; 1 heaping Tbsp. sour cream; 2 heaping tsp. prepared white horseradish, (I used the finely ground variety); 1 tsp. dill pickle juice (whatever brand you have on hand is fine); ½ tsp sugar or more to taste. If you have whole grain mustard, add half a tsp. or so. (I didn’t use it and we didn’t miss it.) Whisk ingredients together and refrigerate in a covered container for at least an hour before serving. Makes about half a cup. A scant spoonful each of mayo, sour cream, ground horseradish and pickle juice, plus a sprinkle of sugar makes the perfect amount for a single sandwich or burger.
OR — I’ve also read that you can whip sweet cream until it holds peaks and use that instead of the mayo and sour cream for a milder cream with less tang. That’s way more work than I wanna do. It’s easier to make the above recipe and decrease the horseradish or increase the mayo and cream to make it milder. Likewise, you can add as much horseradish as you want to make it stronger.
A chemical reaction when the horseradish root is grated creates the heat in flavor and fumes. This heat generating reaction is counteracted by acids such as lemon juice or vinegar, which are often ingredients in sauces and creams.
The hotter version of horseradish cream may be spread on meat or fish before cooking, or may be served at the table either hot or cold. It requires a little more preparation:
Hot horseradish cream:
Melt 1 ½ Tbsp. butter in a skillet and add 1 ½ tbsp. flour, cook and stir for a minute or so. Do not let it brown. Add a cup of beef broth, ¾ c. sour cream, ½ c. prepared horseradish, and ¼ tsp. sugar and ½ tsp. white vinegar dill pickle juice. Cook and stir until hot, adjusting sugar and vinegar pickle juice to taste.
Khrenova Omacka is the Czech version of this. It uses whipping cream instead of sour cream. Also noted: if you grate your own raw horseradish, you may want to sieve the rough chunks out of the sauce before serving. Some people like the rough texture. It’s your choice.
It is wise to store horseradish cream in a glass jar if you don’t want your milk and other refrigerator contents to taste horseradishy. It will intensify as it sits. A plastic container used for horseradish may not be useful for anything else ever again.
Siberian Khrenovina
Khrenovina is a Siberian horseradish sauce made with fresh tomatoes, ground horseradish and garlic. Optional ingredients may be black pepper, paprika, salt, sugar, fresh raw peppers, carrots, vinegar.
Ukrainian Adjika
In Ukraine, this sauce is called Adjika. These sauces are made by putting all ingredients through a grinder or food processor together: 1 lb. fresh tomatoes, ¼ lb. fresh peppers, half a head of garlic, ½ cup sliced horseradish root, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar.
If you shred your own horseradish roots, you will choose a good-weather day when all the doors and windows can be open or you can work outdoors.
The Slavic expression “khrenovo,” or feeling ‘horseradishy,’ means that life isn’t exactly going great right now. I like that expression. It gives people your mood without unnecessary details. Variations of the word can be a slang expression for a cranky mean old man or an outright expletive expressing frustration or anger.
Quick and Easy horseradish cream:
Buy your favorite ready-made chip dip in the dairy case. Onion, French Onion and Bacon dip all work well. Mix a tablespoon of prepared dip with ½ to 1 teaspoon of finely ground horseradish and a dash of dill pickle juice. This makes about the right amount for one sandwich or a hamburger. Enjoy. And there’s no leftovers to put away.
Cossacks and Russians often would not sell our people horses. Camels were stronger, sturdier and cheaper.
Okay, about the camels. Bactrians are Mongolian camels with two humps. Dromedaries are middle eastern camels with a single hump. My people were settlers in the area of south-central Asia where the Middle East meets Asia. Russian villagers and the Cossacks often refused to sell settlers horses.
Camels were larger, stronger, could carry heavier weight and work longer with less feed than horses. They provided milk, meat, work, and were much cheaper in the overall economy. So, camels were the resourceful settlers’ critter of choice, and subsequently became the mascot of the AHSGR organization.
Update: Ukrainian Red Beet Horseradish, a last-minute find, has been added in the comments.
