Originally posted by Jess – April 10, 2015
Today marks our 100th post in 100 days of the Springdell Show and Tell! Our sincere thanks for joining us on our culinary capers! As we press on, we hope to hear more of your thoughts and ideas along the way. The more interactive this experience becomes, the more helpful it will be to us all!
Things have been a little slow around here cooking-wise as we had the nasty-cough-achy-sore-throat-fever-flu bug fly through the house. Given the nutrients and medicinal nature of the radish, I decided to work with this veggie in some pretty simple ways this week.
Whenever I get a bunch of radishes, the first thing I usually do is separate the leaves from the stems. This keeps the leaves from continuing to draw water from the radish root, (which otherwise ends up leaving the radish spongy and flimsy). I love using the greens, though these particular radish greens weren’t quite as happy as their warmer weather counterparts. Still, they harbor great flavor and nutrition! I used the choice leaves in a soup, and some of the more wilted ones will go into my freezer bag of scraps for a delicious veggie broth addition.
As I was researching the radishes in the New Whole Foods Encyclopedia, I came across across a simple soup recipe that called for radishes, shiitake mushrooms, bean thread noodle and broth. Luckily, I had all of these things on hand (I love it when that happens) and decided a soup would be a great booster for our immune systems.
I grabbed 5 bricks of veggie broth from the freezer, and sliced up 2 of the shiitake mushrooms caps (reserving the stems for the broth). I selected 4 small radishes and 4 of the greenest radish leaves for the recipe (the original recipe asks that you trim away all but the innermost leaf from each radish, but I already had mine separated). The bean thread, broth, and mushrooms all went into the pot and after boiling, simmered for 2 minutes. The radishes were then added and simmered for an additional 2 minutes, just until the deep pink began to soften.
That’s the whole recipe! Simple, elegant, tasty, nutritious, what is there not to love?
I have to show you the “behind the scenes” adaptation of the recipe. Here is what my personal bowl ended up looking like (I couldn’t help myself):
Some of my other radishes accompanied my remaining ricotta cheese in this Real Simple appetizer of olive oil, ricotta, and quartered radishes. The ricotta balances the peppery bite of the radishes quite well.
Finally, after Nan snagged a couple of radishes to slice up for her salad, the remaining ones went in a simple refrigerator pickle brine. I could go on about pickled radishes for a while, so we’ll save that for the summer crop of radishes. I find it to be a great way to save and savor them when abundance strikes.
How did you love your radishes this week?