Every year at this time I harvest horseradish from our garden. I planted a piece about three years ago in a plastic bin but it wasn’t content just in there and has generously spread into the garden. I dug out all the pieces from the bin early this morning in the rain – well that is a lie, I just snapped the frost-bitten plastic from around the outside of the horseradish – if it was a battle of wills then the radish won! We didn’t have massive pieces like the ones you see in supermarkets and greengrocers – ours were thinner and longer – very root-like. In total we had about ½ kilo of horseradish.

How do you store it? I usually keep the pieces in the vegetable basket as I really enjoy it just freshly grated onto a steak. However as we have so much I did some research and found that I’m wrong! It should be kept in the fridge or freezer.

I decided to whiz some of it into very small pieces in the food processor – left it for a few minutes as this apparently intensifies the flavour as it is exposed to the air and we like it strong, then added 4 tsp of grated horseradish to 100ml of white wine vinegar and stored in a sterilised mini jam jars. This will make both a horseradish relish and horseradish vinegar too. Beware you need to have the windows open and stand well back as it is so potent when grated.

We ended up with three jars and that was just from using up the long tangly bits. We still have another 300g that will be heading for the freezer – you can use it straight from the freezer if you grate it.

Horseradish is the traditional partner for roast beef and steaks; it also mixes well with beetroot to accompany oily fish. I recommend a Bloody Mary on Boxing Day with rye bread, kippers and grated horseradish with creme fresh – what headache?