Radish Cilantro Salsa

 

I wanted to make this chunky salsa back when radishes were new in the market. They start appearing when it’s still too cold to even think of summer vegetables, so they’re exciting. Of course, I didn’t have enough, or perhaps any, cilantro growing in my patio herb garden yet, so I decided to wait. Luckily, now that I have buckets of cilantro, a second crop of radishes, and even a lot of daikon radishes are in the farmer’s market, so it was a good time to try this out.

This condiment/snack has the potential to be rather assertive, what with all the radishes involved, but I found they were well tamed by lots of cilantro, some green onions, a dab of honey, and lime. I used both red radishes and daikon, and it does take some time to dice them small enough to make something spoonable or scoopable. I found it was worth the effort, though, for the zesty crunchy salsa that results.

 

So far, I’ve just been eating this stuff with chips, but I think it would be great served anywhere you like a chunky salsa or pico de gallo, like on this tostada, in any taco, or on a plate of nachos. It might also be good tossed with salad greens, or noodles. My first batch won’t last long enough to try most of those ideas, of course. I’ll have to keep making it (along with this similar recipe) to perk up simple dishes all summer long.

Radish Cilantro Salsa

Based on a recipe in Naturally Nourished by Sarah Britton

1 ½ cups finely diced radishes, any variety

½ cup finely chopped green onion

½ cup finely chopped fresh cilantro

1 teaspoon finely minced fresh chile pepper

Zest and juice of 1 lime, plus more juice to taste

1 tablespoon honey

½ teaspoon salt, plus more to taste

1. Combine all of the ingredients in a medium-size bowl and toss well to coat. Taste for salt and acid, and add more salt or lime juice as needed. Serve as you would pico de gallo or salsa.

Makes about 2 cups.

Other recipes like this one: Cucumber Salsa with Cilantro and Mint, Tomato and Cucumber Pico d Gallo

Early Summer Stir Fry

Once the farmer’s market is in full swing, it’s hard to stick to recipes. It’s the time for improvising, for flinging together the best, freshest vegetables and herbs to make salads, toss with pasta, or stir fry in a hot wok. This week, I went with the wok and made a delicious, zesty stir fry with radishes, carrots, celery, edamame, scallions, and cilantro.

Normally, I don’t measure anything when I make a stir fry. I just chop up all the good stuff that I have, blast it in a wok, and drench it in what has become my go-to simple sauce: a combination of soy sauce, dry sherry, rice vinegar and Thai sweet chile sauce. I wanted to be able to tell you about this if it was good, however, so I paid a little more attention to the quantities. Of course, the measurements in the recipe below are more like guidelines, as are the actual vegetable ingredients.

I really recommend this combination of early summer vegetables (actually, in your part of the world, these might very well qualify as spring vegetables). The zingy, slightly bitter radishes become tender-crisp chunks when stir fried, as do the sweet carrots. The chewy, protein-packed edamame form a nice textural contrast and provide a pleasant, more neutral vegetable flavor. I kicked everything up with a whole teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes, but you could use less for a milder dish, or you could use fresh chile peppers to taste if you happen to have some. I had garlic scapes, another early-season favorite, so I used those, but they are easily replaced with minced garlic cloves.

Since radishes tend toward strong-flavoredness in the bitter, astringent direction, I added a bit more sweetness to my sauce in the form of mirin, a sweet rice wine. I really liked the final balance of flavors, especially with the slightly floral addition from a bed of basmati rice. Brown rice would be just dandy, too. Really, whatever is in season is usually just dandy in a stir fry. Let your imagination run wild….and eat your veggies!

Radish and Edamame Stir Fry

Based on a recipe in Fine Cooking magazine

Trust me on the radishes here. They’re delicious! If you like radishes.

2 tablespoons peanut or canola oil

½ cup chopped garlic scapes or 4 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons minced ginger

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 ½ cups radishes, cut into ½ -inch chunks

1 ½ cups carrots, cut into ½-inch chunks

½ cup chopped celery

1 cup shelled edamame, thawed if frozen

1 cup finely chopped scallions

¼ cup soy sauce

2 tablespoons sherry

3 tablespoons rice vinegar

2 tablespoons mirin

2 tablespoons Thai hot chile sauce

1 cup chopped cilantro

½ cup chopped cashews

1. In a wok or a large skillet, heat the oil over high (or as high as you dare) heat. Add the garlic scapes and ginger and cook about 1 minute, stirring frequently. If you are using garlic cloves, just cook about 30 seconds. Add the crushed red pepper flakes and cook about 15 seconds.

2. Add the radishes, carrots, and celery. Cook and stir about 5 minutes or until the vegetables are tender-crisp and are beginning to brown. Stir in the edamame. Cook and stir 1 minute more. Stir in the scallions.

3. Add the soy sauce, sherry, rice vinegar, mirin and sweet chile sauce. Cook and stir 1-2 minutes. Stir in the cilantro and cashews. Cook just until the cilantro has wilted. Remove from heat. Serve with hot rice.

Makes about 4 servings.

Other recipes like this one: Mustard Greens and Green Bean Stir Fry with Peanuts, Szechuan Broccoli and Water Chestnut Stir Fry

One year ago: Rhubarb Barbecue Sauce

Sugar Snap Pea and Radish Salad

The English peas, that is the peas one eats after removing them from the pod, that I planted in my backyard garden are getting close to the edible stage. I didn’t have to be all that patient if I wanted some kind of pea, however, because the sugar snap peas, those one eats pod and all, have been fabulous in the farmer’s market. I recently combined them in a salad with another great spring offering: radishes.

This recipe was written for green beans, basil and Parmesan, but the author, Jerry Traunfeld, was kind enough to suggest some variations in herbs and cheese, one of which was feta and dill. I like to start with something like this that looks fabulous (and is usually pretty simple), then swap in what I have, often using various green vegetables interchangeably. For example, asparagus, green beans, snap peas, and even broccoli perform fairly similarly, especially in stir fries, pastas, salads and soups. They don’t taste all that much alike, so sometimes the other flavors in the dish might need an adjustment. The dill was great with the snap peas and radishes, but I have to admit that I used it because 1) I love it, and 2) I didn’t have any basil, but there was some lovely dill available, again, at the farmer’s market.

I can’t seem to grow my own dill from seed, which is totally hilarious to the folks from whom I bought a big, cheap bundle. The stuff pretty much grows willy-nilly from self-sown seeds in just about any garden where it has ever been planted at any time in history. I do not seem to have the magic it takes to make that happen. So I bought some and stirred it into my lovely snap pea and radish salad along with its bosom companion, feta cheese.

I loved this salad and can’t wait to make it again. The snap peas I had were delicately crisp and didn’t need any cooking, but if you have some whose jackets have become a little tough and stringy, a 2 to 3 minute blanching should make them more palatable. The radishes are cut into wedges rather than sliced in this recipe, which I think is a brilliant idea. For one thing, it’s a little easier to cut them that way. For another, you get more radish taste in a forkful of salad and the chunky shape is more compatible with the pea pods. There’s just a light dressing of lemon vinaigrette on the vegetables, so it’s the crisp sweetness of the peas, zesty radishes, briny feta, and lots of dill that make up the big flavor combinations.

Don’t let this recipe as it is written be a restriction. I don’t plan to. Like so many other Messy Apron recipes, it’s more of a guideline and platform for improvisation. Whatever’s green (or yellow in the case of yellow wax beans) and in season could probably work here along with a compatible herb and cheese. I might even try something like this with the peas that are ripening on the vines in the garden. Perhaps mint would be the operative herb. At least I know how to grow that!

Sugar Snap Pea and Radish Salad with Feta and Dill

Based on a recipe in The Herbal Kitchen: Cooking with Fragrance and Flavor by Jerry Traunfeld

If your snap pea pods are tough or stringy, you can blanch them, then shock them in ice water before using them in this salad.

2 tablespoons minced onion

1 tablespoon lemon juice
8 ounces sugar snap peas, ends and strings removed, cut in half or thirds
4 ounces radishes, cut into wedges
¼ cup finely chopped fresh dill leaves
½ teaspoon coarse salt
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
¼ cup crumbled feta cheese 

1. In a small bowl, combine the onion and the lemon juice. Let stand while preparing the rest of the ingredients.

2. Combine the snap peas and radishes in a medium bowl. Stir in the dill.

3. Add the salt, olive oil, and black pepper to the lemon juice mixture. Whisk well to combine. Pour over the snap pea mixture and toss to coat. Gently stir in the feta cheese.

Makes 4-6 servings.

Other recipes like this one: Three Pea Salad with Walnutsand Parmesan, Wheat Berry Salad with Sugar Snap Peas and Lemon Vinaigrette, Feta and Lemon Vinaigrette (I think this would be good with some fresh dill in place of the dried oregano.)

One year ago: Sesame Soy Asparagus with Garlic and Ginger

Stand-By Stir Fry

When I’ve got more vegetables than I know what to do with, lounging in my refrigerator, not earning their keep, I often give up on trying something new and exciting with them and just throw them all in a stir fry. Recently what I had to work with, due to a serious case of forced refrigerator neglect, was a chunk of cabbage and some die-hard root vegetables, namely red and white daikon radishes (like the ones I described in this post), lots of carrots and a lonely turnip whose storage partner had bitten the dust.

It was either soup or stir fry. The warming weather left me with a little less need for soupy comfort, so stir fry it would be. Besides, I had a hankering for a zesty, gingery sauce that would work well with these veggies (or so I thought, and I was right enough). I borrowed that sauce from a favorite chicken stir fry recipe from Cooking Light magazine.

For me, the average week-night stir fry is highly impromptu and improvisational. There are some winning combinations that I go back to whenever I can, like green beans, mustard greens and peanuts or broccoli and water chestnuts, but I usually just fling what I have in a hot wok with some flavorful aromatics and douse it in a thickened sauce toward the end. In the case of the cabbage and these hefty, zesty root vegetables, I cut them into matchstick pieces (well, kind of thick matchsticks), which cook faster than chunks, but still retain some crunch when the frying is done. You could probably shred them in the food processor and save yourself some time (and repetitive stress) and they would cook even faster.

I think that whatever vegetables you happen to have on hand would go well with this lemony sauce. It has a great affinity for the ginger, which I julienned and added with the onions, garlic and dried chiles (you could grate it finely and stir it into the sauce instead.) With the amount of vegetables I used up in the recipe, the sauce ended up being a thick glaze with not much extra dripping down to the bed of rice on which I served the stir fry. If you like things a little more saucy, you could simply make a smaller stir fry.

That’s what I might do next time I make something like this. And there will be a next time. Although, with the way I use stir fry as a utility recipe, it probably won’t be exactly the same. And now that I finally figured out that I can just search for sauces within all those recipes out there and pour them over my wok-cooked vegetables, there might just be even more seasonal stir fries than there were before.


Root Vegetable and Cabbage Stir Fry with Ginger and Lemon
Partially based on a recipe in Cooking Light magazine.

Use an assortment of sweet, bitter and spicy root vegetables, such as carrots, turnips, and daikon radishes. While the cooking time is short in this recipe, the vegetables will take significant time to prepare. If you are serving with rice, begin cooking it while you’re preparing the other ingredients.

grated zest of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons lemon juice
¼ cup soy sauce (I used reduced sodium)
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon dark sesame oil
2 tablespoons peanut oil, canola oil or vegetable oil
½ medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
4 medium garlic cloves, minced
about 3 tablespoons peeled and julienned fresh ginger
1-2 dried chile peppers (I used 2 and it was quite spicy)
2 cups thinly sliced cabbage
4 cups assorted root vegetables, peeled and cut into matchsticks
1 bunch scallions, diagonally sliced (about 1 cup)

1. Combine the lemon zest, lemon juice, soy sauce, and honey. Whisk together to combine. Whisk in the cornstarch until dissolved. Whisk in the sesame oil and set aside.

2. Heat the oil in a wok or large skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the onion. Cook, stirring constantly for 30 seconds or until the onions just begin to brown.

3. Add the garlic, ginger, and dried chiles. Stir fry for 30 seconds.

4. Add the cabbage and root vegetables. Stir fry for about 4 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender-crisp and lightly browned. Stir in the green onions and cook and stir 30 seconds more.

5. Stir the sauce mixture to re-distribute the cornstarch. Pour over the vegetables and cook, stirring constantly until thickened and the vegetables are coated with the sauce. Remove from the heat. Serve with rice or noodles. Keep leftovers in the refrigerator for a few days.

Makes 3-4 servings

Other recipes like this one: Mustard Greens and Green Bean Stir Fry with Peanuts; Seitan Stir Fry with Asparagus, Green Beans and Black Bean Sauce; Szechuan Broccoli and Water Chestnut Stir Fry

One year ago: Corn Chowder with Edamame