Apologies for the not-so-great picture — I didn’t expect it to be so delicious and hadn’t planned on photographing it! A good thing, I suppose!
1 bunch Watermelon radishes, peeled, cut into 1 inch chunks
1 – 1 1/2 T. olive oil
salt and pepper
water
1 T. maple syrup (optional)Mix radish chunks with olive oil in a bowl and toss to coat. The radishes should be generously coated in oil. Season well with salt and pepper.
Heat a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the radishes and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring once or twice. Add enough water to come up about two thirds the height of the radishes, and add the maple syrup if using. Cover and simmer until the water is mostly absorbed, about 7-10 minutes. Uncover and boil off the rest of the water. Fry the radishes in the remaining oil until the edges become crisp. Turn once or twice after one side is crisp to allow the other sides of the radish chunks to develop a crisp crust. Remove from pan and serve immediately. Enjoy!
My favorite type of radish is — hands-down — the french breakfast radish. Oblong, fading from white to pink, mostly mild with a slight peppery bite, I can eat pounds of them if they are slathered with high-quality butter and garnished with flakey sea salt… They are one of life’s small pleasures.
But life doesn’t always give you french breakfast radishes. In fact, sometimes it gives you watermelon radishes when you are expecting beets. This afternoon I pulled out a bag of white-ish root vegetables from my refrigerator thinking it was a bag of white beets from a recent Mariquita Farms Mystery Box. I cut the inch or so of stem from the ‘beets’, then proceeded to cut off the tail in preparation for roasting, only to discover a bright magenta center — not exactly the white beets I was expecting! Slightly perplexed, I cut into one and discovered it was not a white beet at all, but rather a watermelon radish! Que sera, sera… The two are almost identical on the exterior when the greens aren’t attached, so I can forgive myself for confusing the two…
But although I could forgive my vegetable confusion, it really threw my lunch plans for a loop. I was planning roasted white beets with sauteed spinach atop quinoa. What could I do with watermelon radishes instead?
Though I typically eat watermelon radishes raw (julienned with soy, mirin, sesame oil, sesame seeds, and rice vinegar), today I wanted something hot. Roasted radishes seemed… not so appetizing… so I decided to experiment. I decided to cook these radishes how I typically cook potstickers — a quick saute in oil, a medium-length steam, and finally another fry to crisp the edges.
Wary, I flipped on the burner and started cooking. Worse comes to worst I could always scrap my lunch and visit the American Grilled Cheese Kitchen… oh the joys of working from home on Tuesdays.
After about 15 minutes the “potsticker” radishes were done, and I spooned them atop my quinoa and spinach. I took one bite, then another, and deemed the grilled cheese kitchen completely unnecessary. The radishes were DELICIOUS! Who’d have thought? I guess, when life gives you radishes………
On a different note, things have been pretty quiet around Modern Beet as of late. I haven’t been cooking much, or at least not things that are really worth sharing. But something else exciting is going on — my big news is that I got an awesome new job! You might have heard of the company… they do awesome things, have lots of awesome people, and generally just exude awesomeness… Wish me luck!
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