Black Spanish Round Radish

Black Spanish Round Radishes, size small. . .

. . . medium. . .

. . .and LARGE.

I've been growing Black Spanish Round radishes for three years now, with both Spring and Fall plantings. I love them. They are reliable, they last forever in the garden and in storage, and are one of the easiest things I've ever grown.

The Black Spanish Round is a very old heirloom radish, grown in Spain since at least the 16th Century and probably long before. It was brought to the new world by conquistadors and grown by early white settlers in North America.

The skin of the Black Spanish Round is so rough and thick that the black root almost seems inedible at first glance. But that craggy, tough exterior is what protects the tender, spicy, crisp, and pure-white flesh of the Black Spanish Round. The thick, tough skin protects the Black Spanish Round for months of storage in the ground, in the root cellar, in the fridge, and apparently even in the holds of ships crossing the Atlantic.

Inside the Black Spanish Round radish.

Our fall radishes are coming in fast these days. I'm at somewhat of a loss to know what to do with the radish abundance. I'm pickling the small ones whole in brine, and made a bunch of radish relish earlier this week.

I did find a farm website with some interesting recipes for Black Spanish Round radishes, but I'm still looking for radish suggestions. I'd be curious to hear if anyone out there has radish preparation and preservation experience. If any of y'all are doing anything interesting with radishes, let me know!

Small, medium and large radishes ready for action.

More about the Black Spanish Round on Foodista:

Further Adventures in Fermentation: Collard & Radish Kraut

Collard greens and dill picked this morning for fermenting.

Wanting to eat homegrown food year-round; loving simple, low-tech ways of doing things; nerding out on food traditions; and prefering to eat food without zapping the nutrients -- for all of these reasons, fermenting things in the summertime has become a big part of my gardening and cooking life.

There's almost always something fermenting in our kitchen. For the past six weeks or so, I've had a 1-gallon crock of garlic scapes pickling in brine on the countertop, and today I started another ferment: the first kraut of the year.

We finally polished off the last of last summer's sauerkraut a couple of months ago, and my mouth has been watering for that sour, salty taste ever since. Our cabbage is not ready to harvest yet, so I am trying to satisfy my craving with an experimental collard kraut.

Though I have attempted fermentation of dozens of other vegetables and fruits over the years, I've never tried collards, strangely. They are such a close cousin of cabbage, the traditional sauerkraut stalwart, that it seems likely that collard greens will make a lovely kraut. I love the spicy crunch of radishes in kraut, and we have a superabundance of radishes and more coming on all the time in the garden, so they were a natural addition.

Radishes on their way to the fermenting crock.

Dilly Collard and Radish Kraut

Equipment:

• 1- or 2- Gallon ceramic pickling crock
• Glass or ceramic plate that fits inside the crock
• Clean mason jar filled with water and screwed shut

Ingredients:

• A hefty bunch of collards - I used about a pound
• Radishes to taste - I used mostly daikon, but any kind will do
• 1 large onion
• Fresh dill to taste - I like to use lots of dill flower heads
• Salt
• A handful of whole peppercorns
• Salt water (1 Tbs salt per 2 cups water)

Instructions:

1. Line the bottom of the crock with dill flower heads. Sprinkle in a Tbs. or so of salt and some peppercorns.
2. Slice collards into very thin strips and cut radishes into paper-thin rounds. Slice the onion in half and then slice into super-thin slices.
3. Fill the crock, alternating layers of collards, radishes, onions, and dill. Start with a layer of collards 2 inches deep or so, sprinkle on a Tbs. of salt and a few peppercorns, and pound with a potato masher. Then layer on radishes and dill, and another layer of collards.
4. After each layer of collards, add a Tbs. of salt and pound. The pounding helps release the juices of the greens and gets the fermenting process started.
5. Once you've used up all of your ingredients, cover with salt water and press the plate down on top of the last layer. Everything should be submerged. Use the jar of water to weigh down the plate, cover with a cloth tied or rubber-banded around the crock to keep out bugs, and let sit.
6. Check every day or so, pressing down the jar.
7. After 3 weeks or so, the kraut should be sour, juicy, and ready to eat. Taste it and see. You may want to scoop some out to eat at that point and leave the rest to ferment longer. Traditional krauts sometimes are allowed to ferment for months, getting stronger and stronger tasting and more and more full of beneficial probiotics. Ferment as long as you like, and enjoy!

A fat & juicy fresh onion, which will taste nice and sour after a few weeks in the crock.

Spicy Radish Relish ... Further Adventures in Refrigerator Pickling

French Breakfast Radishes harvested last month

Radishes have been one of the few vegetables growing like gangbusters in the garden over the past 6 weeks, along with lettuce and the heartier greens. So it's high time we figured out what to do with them.

Through the spring, summer, and fall our garden produced a fair number of radishes (here's a post from a previous radish profusion last Spring). Throughout the year, in came the radishes, easy and reliable. I threw slices into krauts and added them to crocks of brine-pickled veggies, and Christopher grated them with carrots onto his salads. By the time the late fall bumper crop of radishes peaked, we had a backlog of radishes. So I was motivated to search for a way to use or preserve them in bulk.

Christopher's step-father once mentioned an old Mother Earth News recipe for radish relish that had been a favorite of theirs when they used to have a big garden. I looked in lots of books and on lots of websites, and found a wide variety of recipes, including the very same original Mother Earth News recipe, which contained way too much sugar for me to take it seriously.

I did discover that radish relishes are a popular condiment in a number of Asian cuisines, usually made as short-term "refrigerator pickles" without heat processing, and stored for weeks at a time in the fridge.

Loyal readers will recall my affection for refrigerator pickles (here's a post from last summer on refrigerator pickling). I like making them because they're easy, quick, and don't require heating up your kitchen with a steamy canning process. Making a refrigerator-relish from radishes seemed like the perfect short-term preservation method, and a good way to process a quantity of radishes at once.

So here's the recipe I created based on my radish relish research--mine is unlike most that I found in that it has no sugar, lots of ginger and garlic, and all good-for-you ingredients:

Spicy Radish Relish

Makes about 1 1/2 quarts

• 20 medium-sized radishes
• 1-3 inches fresh ginger root
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp whole mustard seeds
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tsp salt
• A few grinds of fresh pepper
• 4 Tbs honey

Radishes shredded and on their way to becoming relish.

1. Wash and shred radishes – either with a hand grater or in the food processor – and put them in a bowl. Grind some pepper onto the radishes.
2. Grate ginger finely and press garlic with a garlic press.
3. In a small saucepan, combine the vinegar, water, ginger, garlic, mustard seeds, and honey; bring to a boil.
4. Pour the hot liquid over the radishes. Cover and refrigerate. Let the flavors mingle and mellow at least overnight before using.

The final product is pretty and potent. You can use it as a topping for stir fries and salads, or mixed in with cooked greens as a side dish, or as a palate-cleansing garnish on a sushi platter.

You could vary this recipe by adding onions and some finely chopped celery if you had some on hand and were so inclined.

After smelling and tasting this stuff, I can't imagine a better condiment for cold season. The pungent, spicy smell and taste seem like they would be the perfect little something on your plate when you have a cold or are coming down with one. The spicy radishes and mustard are great for clearing the sinuses, and the ginger and garlic are classic tonic herbs for winter. Add to that some immune-boosting local honey, and the healing power of apple cider vinegar, and you have another great tonic food - a kitchen concoction that is both delicious and good for what ails you.


The finished relish ready to marinate in the fridge

Vegetable husbandry, succession gardening, and prayers for rain

The late corn that Bud and LJ and I planted is coming along, though getting a bit choked by it's overzealous bean sisters. It's raining a little today (HALLELUJAH!!!) and I'm hoping the rain will give the corn the boost it needs to outgrow the beans a little.

Since it's such a small patch of corn, we'll have to hand-pollinate at some point soon. I'm excited for our first adventure in vegetable husbandry/wifery, which is far less daunting than the livestock equivalent.

Meanwhile, we harvested a bunch of carrots and beets over the weekend (see below), some of which we enjoyed shredded last night in a delightful salad with white beans, wild rice, sunflower seeds, parsley, celery, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar (plus salt and pepper for those of you who want to try this at home).



The rest of the beet and carrot harvest is either fermenting in one of the various crocks crowding our kitchen counters, or in cold storage (aka the fridge) to last, we hope, until the next round of roots are ready.

We're direct seeding carrots, beets, radishes, and mustards now for the fall--the photo below is C. mulching a carrot/radish bed we sowed on Saturday with heirloom French Breakfast Radish and Scarlet Nantes Carrot seeds.



The idea is that we'll keep sowing beets, carrots, and radishes every few weeks until the weather gets too cold--succession planting so that in theory we should have root crops to eat and share for a good while to come.

In the meantime, I am holding out hope for an long, steady downpour today (it's just a drizzle at this point) for our garden and all of the plants and animals, including we human animals, that are so desperate for rain after so many months of drought.

Let's have some RAIN!!!

Radishes....crunchy, spicy, and EASY

Here are some "Easter Egg" radishes we harvested this week...we interplanted them with Spanish Black radishes and Nantes carrots.

The radishes grew so fast, and were so easy.

They practically beg you to pull them when they're ready, bulging up out of the ground. Seeing the purple, pink, and white radishes of this variety nestled down in the dirt really does remind me of an egg hunt.

We've been eating them in salads, and the sheer profusion of them inspired me to make the first batch of kraut of the year, which should be super-radishey. I used almost all local produce--cabbage, beets, and walla walla onions from the farmer's market, radishes and dried last-year's dill from our garden, and some non-local carrots.

Mmmmm, it already smells great, krautey, and sour!