Relish the Radish

Photos by Lynn Schweikart  © 2016

I used to think there was no better way to savor a radish than on a fresh baguette slathered with French butter. Even better if eaten "sur un pique-nique", in a Parisian park. Then I found this recipe for a radish salad -- so simple to prepare, yet so delicious! The past few weeks, the Wake Robin Farm stand at the Portsmouth Farmers' Market has been tempting me with bunches of jewel-like radishes.  So it was an "occasion fortuntate" to enjoy this recipe again. 

I had come across it in a July 2003 New York Time article by Mark Bittman (Mark, I miss you, please, enough with this "entrepreneurial" detour -- come back to writing your Minimalist food columns!) I liked the combination of fruit juices, piquant chili pepper, and herbs. I liked how easy it was to prepare. Most of all, I liked how it took radishes from the supporting role they play in most salads, and gave them the starring role! 

The salad takes about 20 minutes to prepare, but for 15 of those minutes, you do nothing while the radishes take a salt-water bath!

RADISH SALAD ala Mark Bittman (Serves 4)




Ingredients

About 12 radishes, thinly sliced  (Bittman recommends using mandolin, but I just used a sharp knife.) 

1 tablespoon salt (I used kosher)

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon orange juice

Ground Urfa pepper or other mild chilies to taste (Bittman says this is optional, but I love the rich, smoky taste of Urfa, with its hint of heat. I also think its deep maroon color adds a nice visual interest.)

2 tablespoons chopped mint or cilantro.  (I used a combination of both -- why not?)

Instructions

1. Combine radishes with salt, and cover with water in a bowl. Let sit 15 minutes. Drain, and rinse.

2. Meanwhile, stir together the pepper and fruit juices.

3. Toss radishes with dressing and chilies. Taste. Add more salt, pepper or lime juice as needed.

4. Garnish with the herbs, and serve.

A Feast of Roasted Radishes

A few years ago, when I was reorganizing my cookbooks, I moved my small collection of Time-Life Foods of the World cookbooks out of the kitchen and into the bookcase that surrounds my living room mantle. Though they were written by some of the most preeminent food writers of their day -- for instance, Waverly Root wrote the Italian volume, M.F.K. Fisher and Julia Child, the French -- I'd always valued them much more for their evocative photography and storytelling than for the actual recipes. In fact, it was one of the pictures that I saw in The Cooking of Provincial France in the early seventies that changed the way I thought of radishes forever: a tow-haired boy of about four or five eating an open-faced sandwich of long rose-and-white breakfast radishes on a slice of well-buttered French bread. For someone who'd only eaten bright red radishes raw in salads or dipped in salt, it was a glimpse of an unknown, yet exciting world.

I had same thrill recently when I found not one, but two articles extolling the virtues of cooked radishes: one by Melissa Clark in The New York Times; the other by Donna Long in a Saveur article entitled Foods that Inspire. Needless to say, I was incredibly inspired by both. It was early May and the Farmers' Market in Portsmouth had just opened. I found a beautiful mixed bunch of radishes at the Wake Robin Farm stand.

I decided to take Melissa Clark's idea of combining radishes and feta and use Long's recipe for roasting. 

Then I gave it a twist of my own: serving it on crackers as an hors'd oeuvre, as sort of homage to that tow-headed French boy who had captivated me with his radish sandwich so many years ago.

Roasted Radishes
with Feta Cheese on Crackers
Based on a recipe from Saveur Magazine

Ingredients
1 bunches assorted radishes
1 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
2 sprigs fresh thyme
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Half cup of feta cheese, crumbled
8 large flat water crackers

Directions
1. Heat oven to 425˚. Trim radish greens; reserve for another use. Wash radishes, pat dry, and transfer to a large bowl with oil and thyme. Toss to combine; season with salt and pepper.

2. Cut radishes in half and put them into a shallow baking dish and cook, turning occasionally, until golden brown and a small knife slides easily into radishes, about 20 minutes.
3. Sprinkled crumbled feta on the radishes and put back into the oven for a few minutes, until the cheese has melted.
4. Place on crackers and serve.

SERVES 4