A Daikon Radish A Day

A Daikon Radish a day...will keep your friends from answering the phone, once you start to have an avalanche of them. Luckily, I have a secret weapon:

Roasted Daikon Radish Fries

Cut into 1/4-1/3 strips
marinate in olive oil with a shake or two of cinnamon, curry powder, cayenne pepper and a teaspoon or so of honey.
Roast at 425 for about 10 mins each side.

Yum on!


It's an amazing vegetable. Like the boniato, they like sandy soil. The beets didn't do well at all in the boulevard, but the onions did okay. Along the left edge of the boulevard is a weed called Virginia Pepperweed, sometimes, Poor Man's Pepper. Early settlers used it as a pepper alternative. I always let some come up. It's also a host plant for the Great Southern White butterfly.


Sandy, barely improved soil, they thrived in it. I planted one variety that grew to the size and shape of a football.

Is That A Radish In Your Pocket? Part III

So Ginormous.

Okay one more recipe. A common use for Daikon Radish is in stir fries and you can find recipes all over the net. But another common way I use it is:

Paprika Shrimp Recipe
takes about 20 mins.

• Put a bunch of olive oil in a pan. How much? It depends upon how many people you plan on feeding. I just made approximately 8 servings of this and used a 1/3 cup of oil. In other recipes I recommend substituting veggie broth for olive oil, but not for this one. I've tried it, and it dilutes the paprika taste.
• Take several spoonfulls of good, Spanish paprika. [Srsly, you can get a tin of really great paprika for under $5.00 here . For this recipe I like the smoked sweet because I'm adding bitter in the form of mustard leaves later] Again, how much? For 1/3 cup of oil maybe 4 heaping teaspoons? The resulting mix should be a nice, consistent, dark red. It shouldn't look like olive oil with something in it. It should look like a red sauce.
  
• Paprika, like cumin, is a sauce that really needs to be heated to release it's flavor. I usually heat for 5 mins, then I add onions. Add about 4 tablespoons of honey. Cook the onions at a high simmer to low boil for 5-10 mins.
• Add you some mustard greens and stir! When it gets too hot in the summer for the mustard to survive I've used swiss chard but I like mustard greens better. How many? It hugely depends on the type of mustard leaves. I grow about 9 months out of the year Florida broadleaf mustard [also known as Indian Mustard and leaf mustard]. It's way more tender and mellow than the curly, tough mustard you generally get in the grocery store, and, like swiss chard or spinach, wilting greatly decreases it's volume. Figure on four chopped, loosely packed cups per person. For the tough type? Halve it and see what you get. [I highly recommend growing you some mustard. It's dead easy.]
  
• Salt [a little] and pepper
  
• At this point I usually wilt the greens for about 2 minutes and decide if the sauce needs water. It usually does and I add a cup, maybe two. I often add more paprika at this point too.
  
• Add some frozen shrimp. I usually figure two handfuls of shrimp per person. [Yes, I do have measuring instruments in this house but it's just not me.]
• By the time the shrimp are heated through and have released their little shrimp juices you are ready!
  

Serve with rice and a nice crusty bread for sopping up the sauce.

Is That A Radish In Your Pocket? Part II

[Haley watches fearfully as the radish descends.]

Okay. So how do you use a Daikon Radish? [Now, stop, besides that.]

I basically use them like I would an onion or potato. And this time of year I'm using them a lot. It's like squash in the Northeast in summer. And the greens are fantastic but have to be cooked for awhile.

Radish Fries

• Marinate in olive oil, cinnamon and cayenne pepper. A little bit of salt. [Cumin and honey would also work, experiment!]
• Roast 'em in an 425 degree oven for 30 mins, turning every 10 mins. [Okay, I'm not sure about the times, I just test every 10 mins until they are crispy on the outside and cooked through.]
  

Southern Style Radish Greens Recipe
[a nice article on the history of southern greens here]

• Saute some onions [or green onions, in my case].
• If you want to cut down on oil, saute in a little vegetable stock.
  
• Cook the onions until they are done.
  
• Take the smoked turkey you bought at the grocery store [necks, whatever, it don't matter] and throw them in next. Move the onions around so the skin touches the pan. [Many classic recipes have this step first.] Turn up the heat high so that the the turkey gets good and hot. This releases the remaining fat and really flavors the greens. Cook about 10 mins, and then flip the turkey parts and cook another 10 mins. [Again, my timing is an estimate, just watch so it doesn't burn.]
• Take the big ass daikon radish you pulled out of the weed patch next to the road, cube it, and throw it in.
• Add enough water to cover everything.
• Add two pinches of red pepper flakes, salt and pepper.
• Add about 6 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar.
• Chop up the radish greens from your big ass road radish and throw them in.
• Cover and boil.

I usually boil for like 5 mins, then turn down for a high simmer. I cook until the turkey meat comes off the bone. There are tons of variations on this recipe. You can add garlic. If I've got tomatoes or other veggies going bad I'll often throw them in [but maybe not mushrooms]. Srsly, you can feed 10 people for about $6.00 worth of smoked turkey parts.

Is That A Radish In Your Pocket?

Welcome to winter in Southwest Florida. So I’m growing radishes and onions and a few other things out on the boulevard [I grew boniato in the summer here, but that's another post.] And yes, my neighbors do think I'm crazy, but in the nicest way :)

The beets and squash are unconvinced by this environment, but the daikon radishes...


Are incredibly happy. I've been growing them in containers for months [they don't like the heat/humidity of the deep summer, but do well the rest of the time] but they've never looked like this. While I have done some soil improvement, it's still mostly very well draining, sandy, soil.


Ready for a little radishment? [I mean really, who could resist? The other photos were actually scarier than this one.]