I have a soft spot for radishes because it was one of my father’s favourite treats. He used to go out to my mother’s vegetable garden and pick a bunch, then cut a whole plate of them, sprinkle with a bit of salt and then go sit on the back porch to enjoy them. As a child, I found them too hot for my taste and it used to fascinate me that he could eat so many of them at once. Now that I’m older I quite like the heat on the tongue that they provide. If I had served him this salad dish, he never would have recognized the radishes.

It seems to me that roasting radishes is a fairly new thing. I know I did it last spring, but I don’t ever remember doing it before that. In my experience, Radishes were always eaten raw. I quite like roasted radishes, but you lose the peppery part of the flavour and the bright red colour. When I served this salad last week at a dinner party, my guests were a bit confused. They looked like potatoes, but they didn’t taste anything like them and the texture was all wrong for potatoes. Still, it was a delicious salad and the radishes work nicely with the asparagus.

Radish greens are quite good as well, and you could saute them in a bit of olive oil and then add them to this salad as well if you like.

This recipe is from Naturally Ella, via The Kitchen

INGREDIENTS