Pickled Radishes

A quick and easy condiment

As the garden produce starts to come in, almost every day becomes a game of ‘what can I make with this?’ and fortunately in a small garden, I can usually win at this by making delicious meals. As the spring turns into summer and the trickle increases to a flood, however, I’m inevitably faced with difficult decisions. Like… how do I preserve this?

Radishes struggle in the heat here, and I planted several varieties this spring for two reasons: to mark out where I’d planted carrots as they germinate rapidly, and to see which ones perform best in my garden. I have some definite winners already, although it will take a course of years to truly determine the ones I’ll be growing every season. The daikon is thriving in spite of the early heat. The white icicle radishes did okay for roots, but their greens are so tender and mildly flavored I could use them in a salad to replace lettuce. And then there’s this thing!

That is a black radish. Of the radishes I put into the carrot bed, only a few developed their roots. Most bolted, and I pulled them to feed to the chickens. I let this one go until I thought it was about to bolt¹ and then harvested it. Since I was planning a meal of pulled pork sandwiches for the big Saturday gathering, I decided to make a quick² pickle from the root, and use the greens (from this and the icicle radishes) to make a side dish of greens. Nothing to waste if I can help it, although some things cycle through the chickens for nutritious protein and fat in the shape of eggs.

Only the peel of this radish is black, and a snow-white interior was still tender.

You’ll want about a pound of thinly-sliced radishes for this recipe. I just used this one large radish, which was close to a pound!

• 1 c rice wine vinegar³

• 1 c water

• 2-3 tbsp sugar

• 1 1/2 tsp pickling salt⁴

• Thumb of ginger, cut into thick slices

• 2-4 garlic cloves, peeled

• 1 tsp mustard seeds

• optional: sliced chili pepper⁵

Slice and cut into small pieces the radish, smaller radishes will work just thinly sliced. I’m planning to put this on sandwiches, so I kept the slices smaller but if you want to eat them offhand, they could stay in bigger sliced pieces! Pack this into a wide-mouth pint jar (will fill two with a full pound of slices) or a single quart. Add thin chili pepper slices to the top if desired (can use hot peppers if you like!)

Bring vinegar, water, and spices to almost the boiling point, until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Pour this over the radishes in the jars. Allow to cool to room temperature, then place into the refrigerator. Will be ready to eat as a quick pickle in 4 hours to overnight, and this should keep up to a month in the fridge if it lasts that long.

The bright bite of acid and peppery radish is a lovely accompaniment to the rich pulled pork on these sandwiches.

1. Bolting is the act of flowering. In most plants that do this, you don’t want to try and eat them after they bolt, as leaves grow bitter and roots woody once they have achieved their biological goal of reproduction.

2. Sometimes also called a refrigerator pickle.

3. Use a cider vinegar or something else for a sharper flavor.

4. You can use what salt you have on hand, kosher or sea salt also work very well.

5. This radish was quite bitey, so I used a sweet Manganiji pepper from my garden, first ripe pepper of the season!