radishes

In honor of an upcoming Twin Cities visit by world-renowned chef Francis Mallmann, we provide this selection from his new book. Behold, the power of fire. 

This is one of the few fresh vegetable salads you can put together all through the winter. It is a favorite at my restaurant in Garzón, even in the summer. Very crunchy, very fresh. The eggs make it a complete light meal. I first had it on a trip to Australia with a number of other chefs, including David Tanis. If you don’t know David, he has had a very interesting life: For many years, he spent half the year as the chef at Chez Panisse and the other half of the year as a private chef in Paris. Now his recipes appear every week in The New York Times Dining section, and they are a highlight of my Wednesday morning reading. 

The bunches of radishes you might see on the tables at many farmers markets are almost too pretty to eat: The bundles of bright red or variegated purple, pink, and white look like happy balloons. If your experience with radishes begins and ends at the grocery store or buffet garnishes, then you might be surprised with the variety of colors, shapes, and flavors. 

This is the first part in a bi-monthly series featuring the CSA vegetables we receive on a weekly basis.

It is sort of like getting a care package from your best friend...who happens to be a farmer. In February, my fiancée and I signed-up with Bluebird Gardens of Fergus Falls, MN to receive weekly half-bushel share boxes. We paid just $395 for the whole season!

Cherry Belle, French Breakfast, White Icicle, Plum Purple – these are just a few varieties of summer radishes that are garnering attention in the produce aisle and at farmers’ markets and gracing CSA (community supported agriculture) boxes. The jewel-toned beauties we’ve been receiving from our CSA are fat and gorgeous, almost too pretty to eat. We ogle, then quickly get them into a salad, or slice for a quick and cooling snack as these sweet and spicy nuggets keep in the refrigerator only for a short time.

This root crop can mature in as little as three weeks, which, for those with gardens, is about as close to instant gratification as growing your own vegetables can get. If left in the ground too long, they can get woody, pithy and mighty spicy, so it’s okay to get greedy with your radish reaping.

It's easy to be part of a CSA during the summer - the produce is beautiful and plentiful, the variety fun and interesting. Having perused a bunch of other blogs throughout the prime growing season, it was sometimes hard to tell in what region of the country the producing farm was based. Everyone seemed to get carrots, radishes, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, and much more.

Many of you know by now that I was neither born nor raised in the Midwest. But a few farmshare weeks into the cold season, I'm feeling like a true Minnesotan. Delicata squash? Baby white turnips? Red kale tops? If those things existed on Long Island, none of my family or friends knew about it. (We did have raisins for Halloween though.)

Organic certification is a substitute for knowing who's growing your food and how they're growing it.

- Greg Reynolds, May 24, 2009

My daughter sure thinks so, but I dunno. We've got loads of rabbits in our yard, along with chipmunks, squirrels, and gophers. I'm pretty sure I've never seen a muskrat anywhere near my yard. But I do know this: yesterday morning I was raving to friends and co-workers about the state of our garden - the radishes, chives, leeks, snow peas, and potatoes were looking great - and when I got home, there was a big hole where the potato used to be. Mr. Muskrat, I have your number!

My daughter sure thinks so, but I dunno. We've got loads of rabbits in our yard, along with chipmunks, squirrels, and gophers. I'm pretty sure I've never seen a muskrat anywhere near my yard. But I do know this: yesterday morning I was raving to friends and co-workers about the state of our garden - the radishes, chives, leeks, snow peas, and potatoes were looking great - and when I got home, there was a big hole where the potato used to be. Mr. Muskrat, I have your number!