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

Putting Food By

In an attempt to survive the vegetable onslaught, we borrowed a dehydrator and spent some time yesterday drying tomatoes and squash.



I also desalted a bunch of brine pickled vegetables and packed them in a 4-to-1 water/vinegar solution and put them in the fridge, where they will keep for a few months without heat processing (which would have killed all of the beneficial bacteria from the brining).

Because we were already in a frenzy of food preservation, we figured it wouldn't hurt to add one more food project to the kitchen mix, so we told Alan he could come by to make pesto out of the huge quantity of purslane he, LJ, and I gathered last week while we were up in Pennsylvania.

Purslane is a common weed which is quite tasty and contains alpha-linolenic acid, one of the famous Omega-3 fatty acids, and other nutrients. There's a little bit volunteering in various spots around our garden, but we came across the motherlode last week as we were passing through Haverford, PA. We gathered a ton and brought it home to turn into pesto.

Above are the squash and tomatoes on their way to the dehydrator, and below is Alan making purslane pesto. We ended up with a little more than 1/2 gallon of pesto, made with nothing but purslane and olive oil. We can add nuts and/or cheese later if we want, but the flavor is so good and tart and juicy as it is that I hate to change it at all!


















Above: Alan making purslane pesto...you can see the jars of brine-pickled squash, cucumbers, and cauliflower at the left of the photo, too.


Below: triumphant end-of-the-day photo of the same table pictured in yesterday's blog, much emptier after a day of preserving. Alan, Christopher, and I feasted last night on fresh veggies, including a
very tasty Italian edible gourd and some of the aforementioned pesto, around a candlelit centerpiece of the remaining tomatoes...

Refrigerator pickles

We planted Edmonson and Japanese Long cucumbers and are now experiencing massive cucumber overload.

I'm brine pickling some cucumbers whole, but in an effort to keep up with the pace of production, I made a giant batch of "refrigerator pickles" too (ingredients shown above).

My refrigerator pickles are loosely based on Mollie Katzen's Wilted Cucumber Salad recipe, which has been a summer favorite of mine for years. Here's her recipe, from the Enchanted Broccoli Forest:

Wilted Cucumber Salad

Make this a day ahead so the cucumbers can fully absorb their marinade. This keeps beautifully in the refrigerator for 2 weeks or more.

2/3 cup vinegar (wine or cider)

1/3 cup water

4 Tbs. honey or sugar

1 tsp. salt

1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion

4 medium-sized cukes, peeled, seeded and thinly sliced

fresh black pepper to taste

2 Tbs. minced fresh dill

Combine the vinegar, water, honey or sugar, and salt in a small saucepan. Heat just to the boiling point, then remove from heat. Place the onion and cucumber slices in a medium-large bowl, and add the hot liquid. Cool to room temp, add pepper and dill. Transfer to a jar with a tightly fitting lid. Chill until cold.

I like to add a fair amount of coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley to this mix, and I use considerably less honey (about half of what Mollie calls for) and NO sugar! I'm not categorically opposed to sugar, but honey tastes a lot better in this recipe to me.

For this batch I increased the volume of everything but the sweetener in this by about 6 times, and threw in a bunch of fresh dill flowers and leaves.

Here's the finished product -- just shy of 5 quarts of refrigerator pickles. We'll eat some tonight with friends along with a bunch of other summer salads.

Making these is a warm reminder of my gratitude to Mollie Katzen, who was a huge part of my food education. I cooked from her classic vegetarian cookbooks all through high school and college and into my "grown up" years.... She introduced me to Swiss Chard, helped me survive as a teenage vegetarian in the sticks, and made me feel like I was part of a community that cared about food for years before I actually experienced that community in person.

I hardly ever use recipes any more, and if I do, I can't help but modify them (add parsley, decrease honey) but I still keep the old Moosewoods around as reference books, right beside "The Joy" in every kitchen I've ever established over the past dozen years. Thanks Mollie!