First Radishes
I am told that open-face radish sandwiches are an acquired taste.
I am told – very firmly – that cream of radish-leaf soup is undoubtedly an acquired taste.
Nobody’s perfect!
I still plant radishes. Those ‘Radis de 18 Jours’ are young, crisp, mildly spicy and pleasantly rosy. Still… not quite “18 day” radishes as the French name would have you believed. I sowed them on the last day of March and picked them on May 1, so they are 31-day radishes. Maybe in good French garden soil that’s been manured for 300 years they become edible in 18 days? not here, at least not this early in spring. I have just sowed some more, let’s see if they are of edible size on May 19… Because I don’t have 298 years!
Note the tiny carrots seedlings in between the rows of radishes: they were sowed at the same time, but carrots take so darn long to come to any respectable size!
The best way to eat those just-pulled from the garden radishes is with a little salt and some really good butter.
The leaves are young enough that they just get shredded and tossed, at the last minutes, in whatever is cooking.
I won’t make radish-leaf soup for a few weeks yet.
But I will enjoy those petite blushy crunchy snacks!
(I also planted ‘Champion’)
I got a huge bunch of assorted radishes from the Farmer’s Market today…i love them sliced thin, on toasted rye, with a little mayo, and some black pepper ground on top. Yummm.
We love them the traditional french way – sliced thin on bread that’s been buttered with chive butter.
My radishes are coming in much slower. I think I also planted in mid-March, and I suspect I will have to wait a few more weeks to harvest.
Paula – now that’s a nice twist on an open-faced sandwich, I’ll have to see if I meet with more enthusiasm…
Susan – yes, that’s how I like them too; plain butter does it too for me, when it’s real good butter.
Julia – ah… yes, anticipation.
Our radishes never make it beyond eating them raw with salt straight out of the ground or fridge. I’m intrigued by cream of radish soup. I think my guy would acquire that taste by the second bite (he grew up taking the salt shaker to the garden, knocking off the dirt on his equally dirty pants, and eating them there and then. Ditto for cucumbers and carrots). I think a radish/fennel soup might be on the menu tonight.
I just saw that it was radish *leaf* soup. Hmm. I had to toss the greens yesterday – my soup may have to wait a week for the next farmers’ market.
Hello Linear Girl, glad you stopped back! Yes it’s leaf – my frugal peasant streak will not let me throw away perfectly good-to-eat leaves (although someone in the house disagree with that “perfectly good-to-eat” statement, but they are. Really). Radish and fennel soup sounds interesting…