Absolutely Radishing

We are now getting some very nice garden produce from local farm, including Hakurei turnips (excellent salad or cooked and very hard to find in the regular stores) and radishes like Sunkyo semi-long - (which sounds a tad insulting) and French breakfast radishes (also an elongated form).

I tend to use radishes thinly sliced on a piece of sliced baguette with butter and salt, or with a 'V' cut out of them filled with sweet butter and dusted with coarse salt, or in sandwiches - just did a radish (sliced lengthwise), basil leaf and Black Forest shaved ham on a croissant sandwich. Excellent with crunchy fresh radish. Or using the radish greens (which usually retain some of the heat) to add a peppery note to salads.

Knowing that there are many creative people here I thought I'd ask if anyone had other uses or recipes with radishes as the main player.

[Jenise]

I bought some French breakfast radishes a week ago, and they were both hot and a bit spongy inside--I don't know what to call it, but it frequently happens in radishes, there are spaces. I threw them out. Another bundle of standard red radishes was good, though, and I halved and roasted them to augment a steak or some other dish, can't remember what. I tossed them with a bit of green chile salt--I remember Bob and I both loving the radishes as much as the protein underneath!

Like you, love them raw with salt and butter, especially on a pumpernickel kind of Ancient grain bread full of wheatberries and stuff. I just bought some black radishes to try that way.

And there are nearly always purple daikon or watermelon radishes in the fridge. We adore them, mandoline-sliced and spritzed with white vinegar and salt, they're a very refreshing healthy raw starter for a glass of white summer wine. Perfect summer food.

Radishes are also excellent skillet seared and combined with peas and mint, or shaved onto a taco (a very Mexican food truck kind of thing by way of Los Angeles).

Funny food--as a kid I just HATED them. Now I'm one of their biggest fans.

Pumpkin will not eat them. I can take or leave them. I like them when they have a bit of peppery zip and they are good with salt and butter (but what isn't?). When they start tasting like daikon, however, them they can start being pushed to the side of the plate.

Like Jenise, I grew up thinking I didn't like radishes, and now the fridge is seldom without- French breakfast, watermelon, daikon and/or standard red (I think Cherry Bell is the one we see in supermarkets).
Lots of salad use, with butter as an appetizers, occasionally the regular radish are roasted with other root vegetables.
I also use a lot of watermelon or FBfast radishes in crudo , where not major player but important supporting role.
If we have good greens I usually made radish leaf pesto, but also enjoy just as an accent in salad

Yes, the greens are nice in salads . I also just picked up some hakurei turnips (local far to table - I've never seen them in regular stores here) and the tops of those cook nicely. And I simmered the turnips in chicken stock and miso and finished them with a bit of lemon juice. Excellent! Went well with za'atar coated grilled chicken thighs with a yogurt sauce.

[Jenise]

Bill, though the Japanese turnips seem to have come on your radar only of late, I did serve them at a terrine dinner once. The year I did the dish I called 'polpettone rigoletto', it was part of a trio on a plate. In the center, with a tiny nest of vermicelli in red sauce with black truffle 'caviar' in the middle to one side, and Japanese turnips that had turned pink from simmering in chianti on the other.

Do you have any trouble finding them down there?

[Jenise]

Bill, not in conventional chain grocers like Safeway. But Whole Foods and our local Food Co-ops have them spring and summer.

[Jenise]

Btw, the difference is that vegetarians are more likely to seek out organic and produce variety for scratch cooks, so shops like the two I mentioned are prime shopping for same.

I just slice them and put on salads. They're crisp and look good as white discs with pink rims.

I grow French Breakfast variety in a pot in the greenhouse. I mean to plant a pot very two weeks to keep a constant supply but forget.

When I grow outside their leaves get eaten and they don't survive.