Three Radish Varieites & A Pickling Recipe That's Great for A Vodka Martini

In this posting, I'll describe three radishes I'm growing this year and provide a very unusual recipe to pickle them.

Radishes are a great thing to grow in your garden because they are easy to grow, quick maturing, and among the first things you can harvest in spring.  I've already described how to plant and grow radishes in a my posting on French Breakfast Radishes, so I won't cover that here.  However, I did want to tell you about the varieties I'm growing and provide a novel way to pickle them which will allow you to store them for about 1 month.

Three Radishes Compared

Our old standby radish is the French Breakfast.  It's a beautiful radish with a white bottom and a red top.  We've planted these for years, so I wondered if other varieties would be as good, or perhaps, even better.  So I planted French Breakfast, White Icicle and Saxa to do a taste test.  All are heirloom varieties, but they have very different appearances.

The French breakfast is a oblong radish with a white bottom and a red top.  The White Icicle is shaped like a carrot but is pure white with a little green at the top.  Finally, the Saxa is a round, bright red European variety that is reputed to mature in just 3 weeks. (see photo)

I harvested my radishes when they were about 30 days old and did a taste test.  I found all the radishes to be mild flavored with a bit of a spicy, radish after taste.  In candor, it would be hard to tell these apart in a blind taste test.  The only real difference I noted, was that the Saxa radish was firmer and more crunchy than the rest. 

At this point, if I were forced to pick just one radish I could grow, the Saxa would win by a whisker.  One thing that I would mention, was that based on just one experience growing Saxa's, I did not find them to grow any faster than the other varieties and they produced smaller radishes.  

Now on to a really unique way to preserve your radishes.  This recipe comes from Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It by Karen Solomon.  I've shared some of her other recipes with you such as how to cure bacon, and I highly recommend Ms. Solomon's book;  it's fast becoming a go-to source for preservation ideas in our family.

Recipe:  Quick Pickle Radish with Lemon

Ms. Solomon's recipe calls for Daikon radish, but I found it to work quite well for all of the radishes mentioned above from a taste perspective.  I would concede that white radishes such as Daikon or White Icicle, make for a better presentation because they don't turn pink during the pickling process as do the French Breakfast and Saxa.  That said, all made for very good tasting pickles.

What makes this recipe so surprising is that the flavor profile of the pickle is dominated by lemon, so it's has a very bright taste.  You would not know you are eating radishes if I didn't tell you.  In my opinion, I would serve these to close a meal because of the nice, light, lemon flavor.  Or perhaps as a nice additive to a vodka martini.

The recipe is so simple, it's ridiculous.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 pounds radishes
• 1/4 cup kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
• 1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemons
• 1 cove minced garlic
• 3 (2 inch) pieces of lemon zest

Instructions:

• Place the radishes in a colander in the sink and toss with salt. Let rest for 15 minutes to extract some of the water.
• Mix the sesame oil, honey, vinegar, lemon juice and garlic in a bowl and set aside.
• Rinse the radishes and dry with a paper towel.
• Add the radishes to the pickling mixture you created.
• Add the lemon zest.
• Place into a Ball jar and let marinate at least 1 hour.
• Refrigerate to store.  Lasts up to 1 month.

These are really quite good and the lemon flavor is a real eye opener. 

Not Radishes, Again!

I just planted another type of radish called Watermelon Radish which has a green skin and a red interior.  I'll let you know if I like them in a subsequent posting.

Bon appetit.

Comments

[healthy eating recipe]

hmm i think is right ...

[Hippioflov]

Radishes also great baked. Thinly slice them and stir in some olive oil and salt - i used sea salt. Spread in a flat pan and bake at 350 til the edges begin to brown.

[H. Mark Delman]

Thanks for the tip. It sounds good. We do something similar with summer squash the trick is to slice it paper thin.

-PlanterTomato