Dragon's Blood Sauce

I posted before about how I had some business cards printed up for the blog.  These were mainly for use at work where I could give them to customers in need of a recipe.  Since I had them printed I think I've given out about 100 of them so far and I hope that at least some of the people I gave them to found this site helpful in their kitchen endeavors.  The handing out of business cards has reaped other benefits though.  I came to have a nice talk about vintage recipes with a couple of wonderful ladies and in the course of conversation the one lady who was visiting from up north stated how she had these old cookbooks and she would love to give them to me to help me with the blog.  Fantastic!  I love old cookbooks and according to her they were church compiled cookbooks which is even better because they often comprise of family recipes that are much better than the advertiser recipes I usually deal with on here.


  After some time had elapsed her friend came in the other day to deliver the cookbooks and I couldn't be happier.  They are both from the same church in Ohio and one was printed in 1961 and has extensive recipes for entertainment foods but the other one was older, from the middle of WWII and seems to be all handwritten recipes that were copied on a mimeograph machine for the book.  There are a large number of recipes I want to try and I've already given 2 of them a try but have come to the conclusion that modification is necessary for these recipes as they just don't always work out the way that they're written.  One recipe that required little modification though was this one for Dragon's Blood a sauce for eggs although it would work well on shrimp or salmon cakes, etc.  As it's made with horseradish it's not blow you away spicy as you might expect in the modern era but yet still spicier than I would have figured for the vintage era.  I made just 2 modifications to this sauce substituting Creole Seasoning for the Chili Powder originally called for and 5 spice powder in lieu of ground cloves.  I also converted the original dash, pinch, heaping spoonful measurements for actual measurements.

Dragon's Blood Sauce

1 Cup Ketchup
1 to 3 tsp Ground Horseradish (depending on the strength, use pure ground)
1/4 tsp 5 Spice Powder (or 1/8tsp ground cloves plus 1/8 tsp ground ginger)
1 1/2 tsp Creole Seasoning or Chili Powder
1-2 Tbsp water to thin the sauce

Mix all ingredients and thin it out a bit with some water to make it pourable.  Serve over eggs or with your favorite seafood dish. Keep tightly lidded in refrigerator for up to a week.

A word about ground horseradish, most brands of ground horseradish are weak today, hence the 1-3 tsp used in the recipe.  However it is always important to test your horseradish and see how strong it is before adding to the sauce.  

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