Grilled/Charred Radishes with Flavored Butter and Fleur de Sel

Radishes are often overlooked as a vegetable and most if not all the time people have sliced radishes on their salad. Radishes used to be a staple vegetable in salads when I was young, but then poof they disappeared! I have always enjoyed radishes. Several years ago, I was at a dinner party where we were enjoying aperitifs with a nice glass of wine and we were served raw baby radishes with softened butter and sea salt. I was really blown away by the combination. Now the traditional French aperitif also includes crostini. Two years ago I was asked to put on a 5-course dinner for 15 (more on that later), but I decided to try something. I grilled radishes as an accouterment on a salad and received surprisingly positive feedback. So one day not long ago, I had some radishes left over that I needed to use and I decided to give the grilled/charred radishes a go one more time. Here is what I decided to try.

Radish Preparation:

1 bag of American radishes

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of pepper

1 teaspoon of olive oil

1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes (optional)

1. Wash radishes thoroughly because they will tend to have a little dirt on them.

2. Use a vegetable peeler and peel four strips revealing the white flesh in a decorative pattern. Usually, if you could cut a cross section, the pattern I make would look like a cross. See pictures.

3. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly.

4. Let the radishes sit for a minimum of 15 minutes.

Cooking the Radishes: Total cook time is 25 minutes

1 Gas Grill, with side burner (optional) or Charcoal grill

1. Heat your grill to 400 degrees

2. If you are going to use a side burner place on medium heat.

3. Grab a wire grill pan, but if you don’t have one, then you can cook directly on the grill surface using tongs to turn the radishes. Place wire pan on side burner of the grill. Now dump the bowl of radishes on the wire grill pan or on the grill directly.

4. Allow them to cook until they start to turn brown to black, covering 50 to 60 percent of the radish.

5. Once the charring step is done, if using the grill pan, place it on the main grill area and let cook for 15 to 20 minutes. If you don’t have a grill pan, then remove the radishes and place them into foil and wrap up as to form a pocket and seal them up.

6. You are done when you can stick a fork in them with a little bit of effort. You are looking for al dente (to the tooth.)

Charred radishes with Tarragon butter

Flavored Compound Butter Preparation: Total preparation time: 5 minutes

1/3 stick of softened butter

1/4 teaspoon of pepper

3 dashes of Worchestshire

1 dash of your favorite hot sauce

1/8 teaspoon of Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon of fragrant herb such as lemon thyme or tarragon

1. Combine all ingredients in bowl using a fork.

2. Remove and place into a bowl for dipping using a spatula.

Fleur De Sel Preparation: Total preparation time: 1 minute

1 tablespoon Fleur De Sel (sea salt)

1. Place Fleur De Sel into a dipping bowl.

To Serve:

1. Place charred radishes on a platter and let sit for 10 minutes to cool to prevent melting of the butter.

2. Serve with butter and salt in separate small dishes for dipping.

To eat:

Take a radish, dip in softened butter and then dip the softened end into salt.

I find myself eating these with all sorts of meals; fancy or simple. My next radish experiment will be to roast radishes very similar to roasting a beet.

Bon Appetit!