That was no turnip!

When I sliced into my supposed turnip and discovered it was red inside I checked the newsletter. Only the full shares got turnips; What I had was a watermelon radish. No need to change my plans, I figured. Radish chips are no weirder an idea than turnip chips.

One thin slicing and deep frying later, here's the result:


For the most part, after all that frying, it doesn't really matter what root vegetable you started with, particularly when you cook them just a little too long like I did, but the slightly undercooked ones retained a little of that distinctive cooked-turnip sweetness which, combined with the savoriness from the browning and the crisp crunch, made them pretty darn good. If you're careful, this is a pretty good application.

I just did a quick Google and found that I'm the second person to come up with this and post about it. Jane Spice took hers out of the fryer at the right time. Yours should look like hers do.

Radish mizuna pasta

Bit of a change of plans for both the radishes and the mizuna. And a bit of an experiment too as neither ingredient is really known for its use in this sort of thing.

I started by frying up a pile of thinly-sliced radishes in copious butter and olive oil (since I knew the cooking fat would be the basis of the pasta sauce). Ideally, this should be over medium heat as the radishes go from raw to burnt rather quickly, but my stove's large burner only does high and off.

I overcooked at the time so here's a smaller batch I cooked up later at the level of doneness you're looking for: browned around the edges, some red left and just turning golden in the center. A little longer in the pan and they'll crisp up, but these are still soft. The radishes lose their bite early in the cooking process and turn sweet. The browning dims the sweetness and adds a toasty savoriness. At this stage, the flavor is not far from sweet potato chips (if you sprinkle on a bit of salt as they come out of the pan). It was hard to stop snacking on them, to tell the truth.

Sweet potato chips are also not known as a pasta topping so some additional ingredients are necessary. I added a few chopped anchovies for umami, but serano ham or even soy sauce would be good choices too if you wanted to take this in a different direction.

When the anchovies had dissolved and the pasta was done, I added the pasta to the pan, topped with the mizuna (which I had cleaned and removed the stemmier bits from. This required more attention than I expected as there were some rotty gunk mixed in that needed to be washed off. That's why I over-cooked my radishes. That's why you've got to have your mis en place all en place before you start.), removed the pan from the heat and tossed until the mizuna wilted a little.

Finish with a light drizzle of white wine vinegar (or a squeeze of lemon) to cut the fat and that's it. I never said it was a complicated recipe, just an interesting experiment. A successful one too, I'd say.

The radishes are taking the place of a more traditional toasted bread crumbs and the mizuna the place of a more traditional green (I considered the radish tops first, but their good to icky ratio was too low and would have taken too much time to deal with with the radishes already on the fire). Otherwise, a pretty standard Italian preparation and a pretty good one too.

My one reservation is that the radishes lost their crunch pretty quickly. I'd add some pinenuts next time. Or maybe capers. That would be nice too.

CSA week 15 wrap-up, week 16 start-up

All right, I've got two minor dishes from last week worth mentioning before we move on to week 16. First off, I did add the radishes to the hindbeh bil zayt recipe I made last year

It works pretty well. The fried radishes have a savoriness and a chewy texture that's missing from the dish otherwise so it's a nice addition.

I also made a quick dish by dressing steamed green beans in last week's mazuna pesto pulled pork. Pesto and pork are both good matches with green beans so it was there wasn't much of a brainwave there. I think I might have liked a more traditional pesto better, but it worked just fine once I thinned it out to make it saucier and added a bit of acid to perk it up.

That leaves me with mainly leftover bits of celery, cabbage and bok choy. That's essentially the recipe for chop suey which is a thought. I wonder if there's a way to make it not be lousy while retaining its chop-sueyness. Or are overcooked and bland essential characteristics? I'll have to give that a bit of thought.



As for this week, it's slim pickings but only because I left the lettuce behind and got shorted a zucchini. What we've got--celery, carrots and turnips--is pretty much a stock starter kit. I made chicken stock recently but I could use a batch of beef stock, which would be a good use of the rosemary too. Maybe I'll make a proper stew. Probably enough celery left to make a seperate dish with too.

The turnip greens I've already eaten; they always seem to go first. Lots of stems there too that I'm saving up for a vegetable stock.

The strawberries this week finally have some good flavor, but they're going into the freezer anyway. I've made a lot with strawberries recently (including a galette I haven't posted about) and I'm a bit burnt out on them.

The loquats are interesting and new. They share the same tart-and-mild problem the strawberries have had, though. I can see them as a compote accenting something savory, but I might try adding a little sugar to see if I can bring out their flavor and then go for a sweet application.

Finally, I'm going to be out of town visiting my sister for Passover next Saturday. Anyone want dibs on my half-share? As before, passing it along to someone normally shareless would be my preference.

CSA week ten - Thai canistel and radish omelet

OK, I recognize that this one is going to require a bit of justification.

First off, I had a leftover roasted canistel from last week that I was looking for ways to use. You may recall that I mentioned that it tastes rather like pumpkin which would explain why I was searching for savory pumpkin recipes. A technique I use while trolling around the web for recipes is to pair the ingredient I'm hoping to use with various proteins and cooking styles and seeing what pops up. In this case a search for "pumpkin and stir fry" turned up a couple of southern Thai recipes for pumpkin and egg stir fries. Who knew that was a thing?

As for the radishes, when you thinly slice them and fry them until they're browned around the edges they lose their peppery bite and take on a lovely savory/sweet flavor that goes well with eggs. I've substituted them in for the potatoes in Spanish tortillas before with quite good results so why not try them here too?

So I fried up a handful of thinly sliced radishes and a couple links of lop chong in a little peanut oil until both were nicely browned.

Removed them and fried the canistel until it was browned too. That went rather more quickly than I expected; it looks burnt, but it just tastes caramelized.

Returned the radish and sausage, squirted on some fish sauce and then added three beaten eggs and a handful of chopped cilantro.

My attempts at omelets generally fall apart at this point. It ended really more scrambled eggs. Ah well. But that just made it easier to serve over a bowl of rice with a bit more fish sauce and sriracha to taste.



I know this isn't terribly plausible, but I think it works. Both the canistel and the radish have been transformed. The canistel is more like roasted squash while the radish is savory/sweet without a hint of bite. Both flavors are enhanced by the saltiness and umami of the fish sauce. The radishes taste nothing like the Chinese sausage, but they both have similar savory/sweet balances that work well together. The eggs add richness and tie everything together. But the real standout here is the canistel with sriracha; the combination creates a lovely sweet heat that definitely merits more exploration. Give it a try and see what you think.

CSA week 16 - Radish pancake, first attempt

Prompted by Karen's comment on this week's start-up post, I thought I'd try making a half potato, half radish variation on a rosti-style potato pancake. Rostis (or roestis) are disks of shredded potato held together by their own starch. I should have done my research as my previous attempts at rostis have had mixed results.

Most recipes call for pre-cooking the potato, which I did, but only partially cooked is best and I cooked mine all the way through. Another recommended step is wringing some water out of the semi-cooked potato. That I didn't do.

So my rosti turned out crumbly. That's a risk even if you do everything right. With half of the potato substituted out for not-nearly-so-starchy radishes. I ended up binding it together with grated cheese which, while fine with the red radishes I used, would likely not work so well with daikon. Texturally, though, I don't think the change would make a big difference.

The dish did crisp up nicely on the outside, but some overcooked bits of potato turned to mush and some undercooked bits of radish were a little rubbery. Probably best to pre-cook the radish a little and pre-cook the potato less. A couple minutes in the microwave for both ought to do the trick. Best to poke some holes in them first to avoid any risk of explosion. That should loosen up the moisture in the radish to let it be wrung out, too, so worth the effort.


I also think adding just a little corn starch to the mix to help with the binding would be a fine idea.

With those changes, the dish should be workable. The flavors were fine, although the potato dominated over the mild radish. Daikon should be more assertive, but not so good with European flavors. Plenty of other options, just leave out the cheese.

And, speaking of not entirely successful experiments, stir fried daikon in sweet and sour sauce isn't actually bad, but it's not particularly good either.

CSA week 11 - garlicky shrimp and greens tacos

Just a quick post here since this is a close variation of the steak and greens tacos I made back in week seven. The only changes were that I used the swiss chard and radish tops for the greens (and saved the chard stems for later), added a jalapeño and a dash of red pepper flakes in with the onion, put in four chopped extra-large shrimp with the garlic for the last two minutes of cooking, added a little water with the greens to deglaze the pan and replaced the queso fresco with slices of avocado and breakfast radish.

Normally, I'd save this for the weekly wrap up, but it turned out so well and it's such a quick and easy weekday dish I wanted to suggest it before you used your swiss chard for something else. The flavors of the browned onions, garlic, greens and shrimp blend beautifully. The textural contrasts of the creamy avocado and crisp radishes add an elevating aspect that was lacking in the steak and greens version. And I think just adding the step of deglazing the pan added a lot since the greens hold on to pan sauce so you get a nice burst of flavor with each bite. It makes things a little drippy but well worth it.

CSA week four - Radish tortilla española

Now here's something a little more original than the dishes I've been posting about recently.

I've been considering what to do with all those radishes and reading up on roasted radish recipes. One webpage said that when roasted radishes lost their bite and became more like little potatoes. That matched my recollections from cooking radishes last year and I starting thinking about how I could use radishes if I treated them like potatoes. I can't reconstruct my thought processes but I somehow had the notion that they'd go well with eggs so I thought I'd try substituting them into tortilla española. My Miami readers already know what that is, but for Kat, my mom and whoever else is out there, it's basically a thick omelet layered with sliced potatoes that's common in tapas bars all around Spain. Wikipedia has a pretty good description if you want more details.

There are lots of regional variations (none including radishes as far as I can see) that vary the thickness and what other ingredients you might put in. Some include spinach so I thought I could include the radish tops. Onions, garlic and peppers are common so I added those too.

Here's my mise en place. I thickly sliced all of the radishes minus a few I already noshed on. Half the radish tops had yellowed to unusability at this point but I think I've got a good amount left. That's about a quarter of a large onion, one large clove of garlic and one large Serrano pepper, seeded, as I'm out of bell pepper.

The first step was to fry up the radishes in copious olive oil. I wanted them soft, not browned so I kept the temperature to medium and salted them. When they got most of the way there I added the onion, garlic and pepper and kept cooking until the onion had just a bit of bite left. Then I added the radish tops, stirred them in until they wilted and removed everything to a bowl to cool down. I wanted to keep as much of the oil in the pan as possible so I drained them in a strainer over the pan before they went into the bowl.

The radishes at this point have lost almost all of their bite, as predicted, and taste somewhere in the region of potatoes and turnips. It's still recognizably radish but only if you had the idea of the possibility already in mind. The texture is like a fried waxy potato: soft, a little chewy. I'm surprised there are almost no fried radish recipes other than daikon cakes as they're really quite good even if they've have lost some element of their essential radishness.

As the mixture cooled I salted and peppered to taste and added some pimenton and fresh thyme, both good Spanish seasonings. I needed the mix cool so it wouldn't start cooking the eggs prematurely. To get the layered effect the fillings are mixed into the eggs before they go into the pan and there needs to be enough eggs so each piece is nicely coated and floating separately. I figured four eggs (plus a couple Tablespoons of water) should be sufficient. That's not a lot for a pan the size I'm using so my tortilla is going to be on the thin side as these things go.

Most recipes don't go into much detail on technique at this point, but it's a bit complicated to get things to work out right. The goal is a fluffy texture, cooked all of the way through and browned on both sides. That means starting with the temperature way up high to puff up the eggs and keep it from sticking, turning the heat down to let the inside firm up before the outside burns and turning it back up to brown the outside.

Then comes the flip. In Spain you can buy special plates just for this, but I managed with what I've got on hand and only burnt myself a little. The technique is to put the plate on top of the pan, somehow hold them together as you flip it over rotating the top away so if any hot oil comes out it won't come flying towards you, put the plate down, lift the pan up and put it back on the heat and then slide the flipped tortilla back in for its final browning. It turns out that putting the plate down is the tricky part, at least when you don't realize you'll be needing to do it beforehand. Oh, and clearly, cast iron isn't the best choice for all of this. My non-stick paella pan with a high curved rim and handles on both sides is nearly an ideal choice, particularly with the big oval dinner plates I've got that fit over it nicely. If only the handles were a bit more insulated.

It only took a few moments to brown the other side and the tortilla slid easily out onto my cutting board. This dish is best served warm or cold, not hot so I let it sit for a little while before serving a wedge it garnished with green olives and accompanied with the traditional olive-oil-dressed tomato salad.

Maybe I haven't had a really good tortilla española, but I think radishes are a distinct improvement on potatoes in this dish, particularly when served cold. They retain a pleasant texture where potatoes get mealy and their flavor both adds character most potatoes don't have and blends very well with the egg. Even if you didn't want to go to the minor trouble (and risk of injury) of a tortilla española, fried radishes would make a fine filling for an American-style omelet. I'm rather puzzled that nobody (at least nobody on the Web) seems to know this. Maybe it's just me? Could somebody please try this and confirm it's not just me? If it is, I apologize for wasting your radishes.

CSA week eleven - basa with roasted radishes, capers and anchovies

This recipe comes from two sources I normally don't care much for: Martha Stewart and Jamie Oliver. But I doubt Ms. Stewart personally vets every recipe that appears in her magazine and Oliver did prepare his recipe for the Queen so perhaps I can be forgiven for this lapse.

The Stewart recipe I found here and, as you can see, it basically calls for slowly roasting radishes while they soak in bagna couda. I'd be perfectly happy with packing peanuts soaked in bagna cauda so the spicy and flavorful radishes we got in our shares this week are more than adequate.

For Oliver's part, I am attempting an vague approximation of a dish he made in an Iron Chef battle with Mario Batali. The secret ingredient was some obscure bland whitefish which may as well have been cod, really. One of Oliver's dishes was a reproduction of a dish he said he prepared at a state event: fish coated in herbs and roasted on a bed of thickly sliced potatoes and mushrooms. I substituted radishes and onions and probably used different herbs (Parisien Bonnes Herbes in my case. I don't think we ever learned just what Oliver used.) but the main point is the fish lending flavor to the vegetables and vice versa which I do think I accomplished to some small extent.

Basa was my fish of choice as amongst what Publix is offering frozen lately that's what Montery Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch suggests as most ecologically congenial. I buy the frozen fish at Publix as fish frozen on-board the fishing boat is actually fresher than something that's been sitting in a display case who knows how long (and may well have been frozen and defrosted before it got there) and I like Monterey Bay out of the various seafood guides because it does regional guides well suited for aspiring locavores. Their 2007 Southeast guide even has a stone crab on the cover. Unless there's a Florida-specific guide out there, this is the best you're going to do. [Find it at seafoodwatch.org]

Here's the actual recipe

1 CSA share radishes, cut into 1/2 inch slices (the original recipe called for whole or halved radishes but I think what we got is much larger than average)
1 teaspoon brined capers, rinsed and chopped if they're particularly large
3 anchovy fillets, finely chopped (my bottle of anchovies have welded themselves into a solid mass. I used about a Tablespoon.)
2 cloves of garlic, minced (Martha calls for 1/2 clove. My general policy is to double the garlic and add a clove.)
1/2 onion sliced not too thin
1 Tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil (substitute in some butter for a more bagna-cauda-y effect)
salt and pepper to taste
lemon wedges
1 large or two small fillets basa or other whitefish
whatever herbs you think would taste nice with these other flavors

1. Place oven rack in upper third of oven. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

2. Toss together radishes, capers, anchovies, garlic, onions and oil. Salt and pepper to taste. Spread out on bottom on 8x8" baking dish. Put in oven.

3. Coat fish in herbs, salt and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil.

4. Bake radishes for 20 minutes.

5. Stir radishes. Lay fish fillets over top. Squeeze lemon wedge over fish trying not to get too much on the radishes which we're trying to dry out a bit so they can soak up the oil. Return to oven for 10 minutes. Check for doneness. (My thin fillets were just barely done at this point so you may need another five minutes. The radishes can take it. )

6. Squeeze another lemon wedge over top and serve with bread to soak up the extra sauce.