This Two-Part Horseradish Sauce Is Perfect for Steaks With French Fries.
I know I love my boyfriend because I put up with food related behavior that I find unacceptable from any other man. (I support women no matter what they eat.) Unfortunately, he loves ketchup. He bets on everything. He puts on a steak. Puts it on a perfect steak that I cook perfectly.
Loving the ketchup guy means letting go of ego, control, and a bit of self-respect. I love ketchup—I think Heinz Ketchup is the perfect finishing sauce—but it has a tendency to mask more subtle and delicate flavors. It hurts to watch someone pour it over a perfectly cooked steak, although in the end it’s none of my business what someone does with the food I’ve cooked after I’ve served it to them. (However, we came up with a “try it without ketchup first” compromise, and he thinks many dishes are so good that “they don’t even need ketchup.”)
The fried steak, however, requires sauce, especially the “frit” part of the dish. If, like me, you just can’t bring yourself to put ketchup on a plate that also has steak on it, consider this two-part horseradish cream, which is nothing more than cooked horseradish and mayonnaise mixed together.
I realize this may not seem much more sublime than ketchup, but if you’ve ever been served “horseradish aioli” at a steakhouse, you’ve probably eaten some version of this combination. (Even though aioli is not “fancy mayonnaise.” ) The use of mayonnaise as a dipping sauce is also very European, and the taste of horseradish flares up and disappears, unlike ketchup, which coats your taste buds and lingers in your mouth. Apart from steak, horseradish mayonnaise looks equally good on a plate of shrimp fries that will be spoiled by ketchup.
Making this sauce is easy. I never measure, but I usually get a ratio of 1 part cooked horseradish to 2 parts mayonnaise, although this is quite powerful. Start by adding teaspoons at a time, tasting the fries as you go, until you reach the perfect sinus-clearing spot. Enjoy fried steak, shrimp or just french fries.