Radishes, Ultimate Fast Food

For a fast-growing crop, choose the radish, that peppery globe with raw crisp crunch and sweet roasted smoothness.  With edible sprouts, leaves, roots, blossoms and seed pods, radishes are versatile and deserve to star in more than salad dishes.  

Raw Radish Sauce

Yielding mature vegetables within a few weeks, radishes are a perfect kid-friendly plant and since they grow well in a garden, raised bed or container, they are easy to maintain in early spring or fall.  For containers, choose a pot that is at least 6 - 8 inches deep and fill with rich, loose organic soil.  Outdoors, work in a few wood ashes to control pests and enrich the soil.  Sprinkle seeds atop soil, as lightly as possible, and use hands to brush soil over the seeds.  Water until soil is moist and when seedlings appear, within a few days, thin to allow a couple of inches growing room for remaining plants.  Save thinned spouts to toss in salads or stir fry or enjoy eating as you work.  For successive harvests, continue planting seeds every two weeks.  

Unthinned carrots produce interesting shapes

When it comes to eating radishes, recipe possibilities are only limited by lack of imagination.  When cooked, the slightly prickly leaves are velvety smooth and make a delicious soup.  For the recipe, see earlier blog, Ready for Radishes
For a traditional French treat, serve mature radishes, scrubbed clean and sliced or served whole, with butter or cream cheese and a sprinkling of coarse salt.  Roast radishes alone or with other root vegetables for a side dish.  Use blossoms as garnish or addition to an edible flower salad.  Add seed pods to any stir fry or quickly cook them alone or with sugar snap peas in a bit of hot oil for complementary flavor and visual interest.  

Not all heirloom radishes are round

One of my favorite radish recipes is from a 1982 Bon Appetit cookbook.  A lovely pink color, Raw Radish Sauce is perfect for baby or bridal shower parties and is delicious as a sandwich condiment, raw celery filler, dip for chips or crackers or just eaten with a spoon.  Stir into hot pasta for a creamy sauce or plop a dollop on a baked potato.  When it comes to this sauce, there is no bad way to serve.  Well, it probably would not go well with coconut cake. . . but then again, it might be worth a try.

Raw Radish Sauce
(Adapted from Cooking With Bon Appetit: Appetizers, 1982)

Fresh radishes to yield 1 cup finely chopped, about 12 - 14 medium/large, remove tops and tap roots, scrub and quarter
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, room temperature
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh dill
1/8 teaspoon ground white pepper

Place all ingredients in food processor and process until smooth. Put mixture in container with lid, refrigerate about 4 hours before serving.       





 

Hallowed, Fallow Ground

Driving along the gravel, single-lane road, I glance to the right and note the manicured lawn.  Marred only by rain-deprived browned grass, the level area serves as backyard to a fine home.  As I peer closely, I see a rectangular outline of darker green grass and along that border, a stack of wire cages near a pile of compost, remnants of a once-productive, thriving backyard garden.  The gardener died, but the sweat from his brow, his tender care of plants and his eternal gardener's optimism remain, both in memory and soil he worked.  Maybe invisible to our human eyes, but that ground is special and, perhaps in the future, will again produce fruits and vegetables.  

This backyard used to be a productive garden site

I know what it is like to reclaim fallow land for farming.  In 2008, my husband and I visited his family's farm in the Gamewell community of Caldwell County and found weeds, trees, shrubs and a poorly engineered highway runoff area that dumped rainwater into a newly formed swamp.  Fallow for over forty years, this land spoke to us, whispering growth potential.  We imagined future rows of heirloom tomatoes, beans and okra where the untamed property lay.  We planned to drain the swamp and direct runoff water in the direction it needed to flow.  We strolled along the banks of an adjoining creek and saw possibilities for irrigation during droughts.  Maybe we peered through rose colored glasses, but we were ready to accept the physical challenges of organic gardening.

Clearing Brush at Heart & Sole Gardens, February, 2008

Friends and hired workers helped clear the land.  We burned brush, adding nutrients to the soil and opening areas to receive sunlight.  When my parents presented us with heirloom seeds from their freezer, saved by my grandmothers years earlier, we discovered not only was the physical work improving our bodies, but the emotional connection to food was touching our souls.  Each time we turned soil, treasures appeared.  Horse shoes.  The circular covering from a wagon wheel.  Links of rusted chain.  Tangible reminders of farmers who worked the land before our time.  Intrinsic hints about our own mortality.  Promises that time would, perhaps, allow this fertile soil to produce food long after we no longer farm.  

Pottery Shard Revealed by Tiller

In September, recalling my maternal grandmother's garden, a large expanse of property that produced abundant harvests, I decided to pay a visit, in hopes I would find a carefully tended autumn garden.  As I pulled into a street, much shorter than my childhood memory of it, there was no sign to indicate anyone lived at my grandmother's former home or at the one where I lived as a young child, but a neighbor was building a new front porch on his house.  I explained why I was there and the man offered to allow me to walk through his backyard to where the garden used to be, but when I reached the area where huge sunflowers once bloomed, I found tall trees growing among bushy shrubs and weeds so thick, it was impossible to walk through them.  Dismayed, I walked along what used to be a well maintained garden's edge until I came to the end where an apple tree used to stand, its small, tart green apples a taste memory I love.  I held hope the tree might still be living and I could take a small cutting, but there was no sign it ever existed.  As I turned to leave, I noticed a particularly tall weed and when I realized it was pokeweed, I smiled. 

Pokeweed grows in Granny's former garden

Every spring, Granny gathered young leaves from pokeweed to make a cooked salad.  I often accompanied her to help gather the leaves, but do not remember the wild plant growing near her home.  To find this familiar weed, drying in the autumn sunshine, growing where Granny's White Mountain Half Runner beans once thrived, was like receiving a wink from the past. 

As I took my leave, I paused to thank the man who allowed me to stroll across his property and a young girl appeared at his side.  Six years old, the man's daughter shyly smiled as I told her I used to live on the same street when I was her age.  I described my grandmother's garden and how I used to help pull weeds and pick vegetables and fruits.  The girl's brown eyes brightened and as I drove away, I hoped her family would plant a garden in their backyard, only feet away from where Granny's grew.  Perhaps, when spring warms the soil and frost danger is over, I will pay another visit and take some of Granny's heirloom seeds to the young girl.  I think Granny would like that.

Pokeweed Salad
*Note: Pokeweed can be toxic and this recipe should only be prepared with leaves that are very young and tender.  If cooking pokeweed for the first time, it is best to pick leaves with one who is experienced with harvesting.  Pokeweed berries are toxic, but make a beautiful dye for fabric or baskets.  This recipe is a traditional Southern Appalachian preparation. 

Wash about 1 pound fresh, tender young pokeweed leaves, cover with water and bring to a boil in a large pot.  Cook 20 minutes, then drain water and rinse pokeweed with fresh water.  Again, fill the pot with water, bring to a boil with the leaves and cook for another 20 minutes.  Drain pokeweed and again rinse with fresh water.  For a third time, add water to pokeweed and bring to a boil.  Cook for another 20 minutes, then drain water and rinse pokeweed.  Pat leaves dry or use a salad spinner to remove water.
In a large cast iron skillet, heat bacon fat until smoking hot.  Add cooked pokeweed leaves and lower heat.  Stir leaves with hot fat for a few minutes.  Add salt and pepper to taste, along with red pepper flakes or hot sauce, if you like a spicy kick.
Serve pokeweed salad with crumbled bacon and vinegar on the side.
 

One Hot Pepper

I learned the meaning of the word "ornamental" when, at about three years of age, I tasted one of my grandmother's peppers.  Growing on a small bushy plant, the bright colors enticed me to pop a small fruit in my mouth where the searing heat exploded.  As she dried my tears, my grandmother explained she grew the pretty peppers for beauty, not for food.  Now that I grow peppers in my own garden, I appreciate their eye candy and respect the powerful punch of capsaicin, the spicy substance that gives peppers heat.

Omnicolor Peppers, Beautiful & HOT

I first learned of Padron peppers several years ago while flipping through the pages of a travel magazine.  A beautiful photograph of a platter of roasted peppers, deep green and liberally sprinkled with coarse salt, caught my eye.  I paused to read the article and what I read made me long to taste Padron peppers, pimientos de padron, named for the area of Northwest Spain where they grew.  Alas, I could find no source to buy Padron peppers or seeds to grow my own, but the travel writer's mouth-watering description became a gardener's mental note.  
 

Curate's Padron Peppers with Bonito Tuna

 

Last fall, while visiting Asheville, my husband and I dined at Curate, a downtown Spanish tapas restaurant owned by award winning chef Katie Button.  On the menu was Padron peppers and we were powerless to resist this dish, which arrived at the table sizzling hot, topped with Bonito tuna flakes that danced in the pepper's heat, creating the effect of dinner and show on the plate.  We eagerly settled in for a game of Capsaicin Roulette.
 
Within the past five years or so, US growers discovered the delicious appeal of Padron peppers and they are available in markets during their early summer to late autumn season.  Some cooks substitute Japanese Shishito peppers when Padrons are not available, but I predict North Carolina will prove to be an excellent growing environment for Padrons, making them readily available for restaurants and farmer's markets.  

For Excitement in the Garden, Order Padron Seeds

Padron peppers are harvested when the fruit is small, about 1 1/2 - 2 inches in length and while most peppers are mild in flavor, about ten percent pack wicked heat.  Traditionally, Padrons are roasted or pan-blistered and served with a sprinkling of coarse salt and the only way to tell if a pepper is hot or mild is to eat it, making them interesting party food.  Although a hot Padron can feel like a blowtorch blasting one's palate, the delightful mild pepper flavor balances the tightrope walk of anticipation when enjoying Padrons.  

When shopping at farmer's markets or dining in local restaurants this summer, keep an eye out for Padron peppers.  It is ridiculously simple to prepare fresh peppers,  but be sure to serve plenty of cooling beverages alongside.  Just in case . . .

Blistered Padron Peppers

Fresh Padron peppers, washed
Olive oil, about 1 tablespoon per handful of peppers
Coarse sea salt

Heat oil in cast iron skillet until smoking hot.  Add peppers and toss.  When peppers begin to blister, remove from pan and sprinkle with salt.