Eggs in horseradish sauce: the Easter classic where the horseradish is never boiled
Hard-boiled eggs, halved and laid in a warm creamy sauce built on butter and milk, with the horseradish and sour cream stirred in only once the pan is off the heat. That is not fussiness: horseradish heat comes from volatile oils that quickly escape from a boiling sauce — the horseradish loses its character and turns bland. Thirty minutes, one saucepan for the sauce, an Easter breakfast or a supper with bread.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Eggs boiling 10 min
- Sauce 15 min
- Horseradish and serving 5 min
Step by step
0 / 5 doneHard-boil the eggs
Take the eggs out of the fridge 20 minutes ahead. Lower them on a spoon into boiling salted water and cook exactly 9 minutes. Move to iced water for 5 minutes, peel and halve lengthways. Put the potatoes on meanwhile.
Ingredients: 8 pcs eggs · 1 tsp salt
TipNine minutes gives a yolk that is fully set but still orange and moist. At twelve you get the grey ring and a sulphurous smell that a delicate horseradish sauce shows up immediately.
Into boiling water, nine minutes, then iceMake a blond roux
Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat, add the flour and whisk 2 minutes, until the roux smells nutty but stays pale. A dark roux would tint the sauce brown and taste of a bake, and horseradish needs a white background.
Ingredients: 40 g butter · 3 tbsp plain flour · 400 ml milk · 100 ml vegetable or chicken stock · 3 tbsp grated horseradish · 100 g sour cream, 18 % · ½ pcs lemon, juice · ½ bunch dill · 1 pinch nutmeg · ½ tsp salt · ¼ tsp white pepper
TipThose two minutes are not optional: raw flour tastes of paste and is the commonest fault in home sauces. The roux is ready when it stops smelling of flour and starts smelling of nuts.
Two minutes, pale, smelling of nutsLet it down with milk and stock
Take the pan off the heat and pour in the milk in a thin stream, whisking without stopping, then the stock. Return to medium heat and cook 5 minutes, stirring, until the sauce thickens and clings to the whisk wires. Season with salt, white pepper and nutmeg.
TipMilk added little by little to a hot roux does not form lumps: the flour disperses in a small amount of liquid before the rest arrives. Poured in all at once it easily forms lumps that are hard to whisk out.
A thin stream, the sauce clings to the whiskHorseradish and cream off the heat
Take the pan off the heat and wait a minute. Stir the sour cream in a small bowl with two spoons of the hot sauce to temper it, and only then pour it into the pan. Add the horseradish, lemon juice and half the dill. Stir and never let it boil again.
TipHorseradish heat comes from volatile mustard oils that escape quickly at high temperature: boil the sauce and it loses all its horseradish bite. Tempered sour cream will not split in a warm sauce, while cream straight from the fridge into a boiling one curdles as you watch.
Off the heat, cream tempered, horseradish lastAdd the eggs and serve
Lay the egg halves in the sauce cut side up and spoon sauce over them. Warm through 2 minutes on the lowest heat, just enough to heat the eggs; the sauce must not bubble. Scatter with the rest of the dill and serve with hot potatoes or bread.
Ingredients: 800 g potatoes · 4 pcs rye bread
Cut side up, spooned over, dill on top
Before you start
Without a roux
Instead of butter and flour, reduce 300 ml of 30 % cream with the stock for 5 minutes: a thicker, more buttery sauce, though heavier too. The horseradish still goes in off the heat.
With chives and poached eggs
Poached eggs (one or two per person) laid in the sauce just before serving instead of hard-boiled ones, scattered with chives. The runny yolk melts into the horseradish sauce, and that version is dinner rather than breakfast.
The sauce split
Almost always this means the sour cream went straight from the fridge into a boiling sauce. The rescue: off the heat, whisk in a spoon of cold milk or blitz for 10 seconds with a stick blender. Next time, temper it.
