When I made that Red Chard & Potato Soup yesterday, I saved the stems to see if I could come up with something tasty to use them in. I made up a salad that is marinating overnight. If it does not show up on the blog next, then it failed, but I have high hopes. While I was working on that salad, I decided to clean the radishes I bought, cutting off the tops because they wilt and rot so quickly. As I cut off the tops, I nibbled on one and thought that cooked, it might just be delicious. So here’s I browsed around looking for recipes using radish greens. One sounded very intriguing, but I don’t like raisins and I don’t have any nuts or seeds, so I decided to try reworking it a bit to use what I do have.
First I put about 2 dozen dried cranberries in a small bowl and poured enough balsamic vinegar in so that they were about 2/3rds covered. I let them soak in the balsamic vinegar for most of the afternoon so they rehydrated a bit and were soft. Once they were softer, I made the salad.
When I was cleaning the radishes earlier, I washed the greens about 4 times. Veggies with lots of crinkly veins can be hard to get really clean. To clean the radishes, I put them in the plastic veggie bag from the grocery store, added cold water and twisted the bag top shut and then shook them in the water. Then I drained the water off and repeated again until they didn’t dirty the water.
I put the seeds from 2 cardamom pods (about a dozen seeds) in a dry pan with about 6 peppercorns and heated them until the popped and perfumed the air. Meanwhile I peeled a tart apple (Granny Smith) cutting it into pieces about 1/2 by 1 inch.
I added 2 tbsp of walnut oil to the pan and brought it up to a medium heat. I added the apple pieces and let them sauté for about 3 minutes. They browned slightly. Their texture was slightly softer than raw apples, but still toothsome. It is really important you don’t let them get mushy. As soon as they cooked, I removed them from the oil.
While the apples cooked, I chopped up the radish greens. I removed the stems and cut into thin ribbons of greens. After removing the apples, I turned the heat up a notch and tossed in the greens. I stirred them while they cooked for about 1 minute until tender and a rich dark green. I removed them from the pan straight into the salad bowl with the apples. I then spooned out the cranberries from the balsamic and tossed them in, mixing up the salad. With the pepper and cardamom, the salad needed no salt or pepper to finish it. I saved the balsamic to the side. I can use it to dress a lettuce salad or marinate some beef.
The balsamic from the cranberries and the oil from cooking provided plenty of dressing for the salad, so I did not add more vinegar or oil. It was perfectly dressed as is.
It was a super flavorful salad, the cardamom and apple were sweet and tart and that was doubled down by the balsamic and dried cranberries. The radish greens are slightly bitter, the apples are sweet and the cranberries slightly sour. Since bitter is balanced by sweet and by sour, they worked together perfectly. Now I wish I had bought more radishes. Made one salad entree or two side salads.
Single Servings 