Pickled Radish
Last week was a momentous occasion in the garden. We harvested our first crop of this season, radishes! Despite our best efforts, I must confess we did eat some there and then. But for those that survived, my first response is always to pickle. These sweet, acidic, fiery little things have a wonderful texture and lovely pepperiness once they’ve pickled for a few days and will last happily for 6 months in the fridge. Perfect in a salad, sandwich or burger.
Equipment
Whilst it isn’t necessary to slice your radish so thinly, it helps speed up the pickling process and helps spread them out a little so we don’t run out as quickly. For this recipe I used a mandoline to prepare my radishes into 1mm slices. Any that were on the smaller side I cleaned and pickled whole in a separate jar to be enjoyed like little pink sweets. When using a mandoline, always make sure to keep your fingers out of the way. The mounted blade is positioned to face up and it’s all too easy to remove 1mm of finger if you aren’t careful, as only the largest radish actually fit the mounted hand guard most mandoline come with.
If you don’t have a mandoline, you can simple halve or quarter your radishes into roughly similar sized pieces. Again, this won’t pickle as quickly but after 4-5 days they will be ready to eat.
A little more on Radish
These beautiful little plants grow all over the world and make a great cover crop. Fully grown in a month, they can be eaten as sprouts, ground into sauces, consumed raw and crunchy, cooked, or of course pickled. If you are ever cooking a recipe that calls for the use of daikon but you don’t have any, you can use radish in it’s place for a stronger tasting version. Daikon (or Mooli) is just a large variety of radish with a milder flavour.
Often grown as a companion plant in defense against pests in the garden, the very chemicals that make them so effective at this job are the same as those that make them so tasty. Their pungent root is the part we’re most familiar with, but this turns woody in texture when the radish bolts to flower. If you happen to notice this and miss your chance at harvesting the root, don’t be deterred. Allow them to flower, as this is great for pollinators, then harvest the small pods which can be eaten when they’re young. These pods taste sharp and acidic and offer a pleasingly crunchy texture to salads. If you miss this stage too, collect the seeds and sprout them as you would mung beans.
Radish greens are commonly discarded, but if eaten on the day of harvest, make a tasty and nutritious addition to a salad.
Pickled Radish Recipe
500g radishes
240ml white wine vinegar
175ml water
120g sugar
1tbs black peppercorns
1tbs yellow mustard seeds
1tsp coriander seeds
Step 1.
Measure all of your ingredients besides your radish and put them in a saucepan over a medium heat. Stir the pickling liquor until the sugar has dissolved, then set it aside until the mixture has cooled completely.
Step 2.
Scrub your freshly harvested radish clean and remove the tops and root with a sharp knife. Sterilize a jar and leave it to air dry whilst you set your mandoline on a clean and even surface. Adjust the angle of the board so that the radish is cut into 1mm thick slices, then begin carefully cutting your radish. As the pile grows beneath the mandoline, occasionally add them to the jar to save on room and keep them somewhere clean.
Once the jar is full, pour as much of the liquor in as you can fit and make sure none of the radish are sticking out. If needs be you can weigh them down with a very clean, smooth stone, or with a piece of cling film pressed against the surface. If you’re using a kilner jar, simply fill to the surface and fasten the lid tightly to create an airtight seal.
Place your jar in the fridge and wait 2 days before eating. The radish should comfortably last 5-6 months like this as long as they’re looked after and a clean utensil is used to remove them.
Note.
If you have radish that are far too small to slice up, you can make a jar of whole pickled radish too. Prepare them in the same way but don’t slice them up. Place them in a jar and cover with pickling liquor. These will take a week before they’re ready to eat (depending on the size of the radishes).
