Food Simply Simple

Radishes are for salads.  Turnips are for the dark days of winter when nothing else is available.  Wrong.

Radishes come in many varieties – the colorful Easter radishes with white, pink, red, purple; the huge long red ones that appear to be carrots, at first; the tiny sausage-shaped rose and white set.  I’ve seen others, too, but these are the radishes we collected recently.  The turnips were white, salad turnips, perhaps Tokyo turnips.  They are texturally a little bit like radishes with only a dimly pungent taste of a turnip.  Most of the radishes and the turnips had all their greens intact, thankfully!  So, how to make use of these rarely used vegetables and have a great meal?

Pasta with Turnips, Radishes, and Greens

1 lb. brown rice pasta

2-4 bunches of radishes and turnips, with greens removed and saved

1 green pepper, seeded and thinly sliced

1 red pepper, seeded and thinly sliced

Olive oil

1 T. sesame oil

2 T. soy sauce or tamari

1 garlic clove, thinly sliced

Salt and Pepper, to taste

Grated cheese or toasted bread crumbs

Clean the radishes and turnips and cut them into bite-sized pieces so that all are about the same size.  Soak the greens and discard any that are discolored.  Drain the greens and remove any large stems.  Chop roughly and set aside.

Sauté the radishes and turnips in a big sauté pan with some olive oil.  When they are starting to cook, after about 2-3 minutes, put the lid on the pan and turn down the heat.   Pan roast them for  about 10 minutes.  Stir occasionally.  The radishes and turnips will be a bit soft, a bit brown, and more translucent.  Add the peppers, stir well, and continue cooking for another 3-5 minutes.  Stir in the sesame oil, soy sauce, and garlic.  Stir well.  Turn off the heat and let the vegetables sit.

Boil water for the pasta and add the pasta as the package directs.  After you add the pasta, salt the water well.  As soon as you add the pasta to the water, turn on the radishes and turnips again and add the chopped greens.  Stir well over high heat and let the greens wilt.  Cover the pan for a minute or two if you want to speed the process a bit.

When the pasta is done, drain it and add it to the vegetables, stirring gently and thoroughly mixing the pasta with the vegetables. 

NOTE:            If the vegetables are dry-ish when you finish adding and cooking the greens, add some hot pasta water, about a cup, to the radishes and turnips just before you drain the pasta.

TO SERVE:    Serve the pasta with grated cheese such as Locatelli Romano or toasted bread crumbs.

Serves 4-6 depending on how much you like it, and how much you eat at one sitting.

Options?  You could start with a lot of onions and garlic before sautéing/roasting the radishes and turnips.  You could use other types of greens, too.  We were trying to use what we had, and only the big, carrot-like red radishes  lacked their greens, so the greens were plentiful, lush, and tasty.

LinK