Revisiting Radishes - Please do it

Over the past few years I've been pretty committed to "Taco Tuesday". Most weeks we do it and surprisingly, it is usually on Tuesday. Surprising in that most things on our schedule are so flexible (nice way of saying chaotic) because of all of the different demands.

Anyway I pretty much experiment every week. For the past few weeks I've been doing tomato-less because one of our family member's health issues includes a histamine reaction to tomatoes. I've also been experimenting with varying levels of cumin and mixing different dried and fresh peppers and dried and fresh onions.

Another thing that I experiment with are sides. So I was remembering a few times where I got authentic street tacos which were often served with radish. The last time was truly great tacos but I found little use for the radish. They came as really thick sliced fresh/raw radish wrapped in a crumpled piece of aluminum foil. I tried it, but I found the radish unpleasant and extraneous. However my wife enjoyed it with fresh lime and cilantro. So at the supermarket I picked up some radishes for yesterday's Taco Tuesday, primarily with the wife in mind. My idea was to lightly pickle the radish and use it as a sort of relish. A quick search online and I see that my idea is not at all original. But this is what I did:

7 radishes
Apple cider vinegar
S&P
1/2 lime juice with pulp
fresh cilantro

after cleaning up the radishes, I used my potato peeler and sliced them as thin as I could. I mixed this all together and the result was very colorful and pretty. After I let it sit in fridge about 3 hours before dinner, it transformed to where the entire thing was pinkish. Next time I'll take a before and after pic as it is not as pretty as when it first started but still very colorful. This is after a few hours in the fridge:


and this is taco salad with radish dressing...



My original idea was to use sushi vinegar which I thought would offset some of the bitterness of the radish. But we didn't have any on hand and that is why I used the apple cider. The end result was really tangy and still crisp, but great flavor without that mouth puckering bitterness you might associate with radish. One of the tougher reviewers (daughter) gave it an "UHMAZING". Next time I will experiment some more. I was thinking maybe add some thin sliced celery for some more texture/crunch and will definitely try the sushi vinegar which I think will be a completely different version of this. Maybe another version mixing in some jalepeno...

now I have several radishes and was thinking of options and I found this very cool thread:

It is really good looking, You could just add some sugar to your vinegar which is sort of what sushi vinegar is.
I never get radishes and think they are really probably under appreciated. The French use them all the time--cooked in butter. What could be wrong with that.

I have this "fake" mandoline that I use for my freezer pickles and slicing apples, ets. I'm shocked at the price 'cause I am pretty positive I only paid $6 for it but it is a handy thing to have.

charley2 said:

It is really good looking, You could just add some sugar to your vinegar which is sort of what sushi vinegar is.
I never get radishes and think they are really probably under appreciated. The French use them all the time--cooked in butter. What could be wrong with that.

I have this "fake" mandoline that I use for my freezer pickles and slicing apples, ets. I'm shocked at the price 'cause I am pretty positive I only paid $6 for it but it is a handy thing to have.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001QGPHXM/?tag=osn

Click to expand...

Unfortunately in my house I am banned from mandoline use since "the incident"

I can guess--and even this little one of mine has lured me into not using the guard at the beginning of a cuke. It makes slicing so fast--and I'll say I'll just do this until--and then all of sudden the BLADE is THERE!!

The same concept--albeit with hot water--works with onions. I can't eat raw onions, but a little trick I picked up from a yoga magazine works wonders for me:

Boil 2 cups of water, remove to a bowl, add 2 Tbl of cider vinegar and blanche diced or sliced red onions off-heat. Strain after 10 minutes.

This leaves just enough bit to the onion so you know it's there, but your body doesn't send you horrible troll messages afterward.

My local coffee shop (not Starbucks) serves a breakfast English muffin with fried egg, macerated red onions, greens and a dab of some sauce. Sadly I can only enjoy it when I manage to block out that fact that I've just spent $9 for an egg on a muffin.

I had quite a few radishes left so this is based upon the Chickpea Salad with Radishes and Cucumber in that thread but I didn't have all of the ingredients - so no cucumber... But it is tasty, light and fresh tasting. my proportion of radishes is higher as well because I just wanted to use what I had on hand.