A radical radish idea

Roasted spring root vegetables with horseradish-thyme butter. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Radishes must be the easiest vegetables on the planet to grow. How else to explain the weekly abundance of the peppery roots in the CSA box? I've learned to love radishes and their crunchy, peppery goodness, especially sliced into salads or as a vehicle for egg salad. 

While casting about for radical radish ideas, I thought about roasting, my favorite vegetable treatment. A little olive oil, salt and pepper, and a high heat oven can do wonders for transforming veggies. I combined radishes with its fellow friends from the spring garden - turnips, carrots and Spring Vidalia onions. A final bath in a horseradish and thyme-flavored butter sealed the deal. This is an outstanding side dish for roasted chicken or pork, or perhaps a sauteed fish fillet.

This humble recipe has acquired a following - it's a Community Pick on Food 52! Be sure to check out James Ransom's gorgeous picture of my recipe!

 Roasted spring root vegetables with horseradish-thyme butter

Serves 4


Roasted spring root vegetables:

 3 spring Vidalia onions, quartered

 12 radishes, halved (for small ones) or quartered (for large ones)

 3 turnips, peeled and diced 1"

 3 carrots, peeled and diced 1"Ask a question about this ingredient

 3 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper


1. Preheat oven to 400. Combine vegetables in a large bowl and coat with olive oil, salt and pepper. Stir with spoon or toss with hands to make sure all pieces are evenly coated.

2. Spread vegetables in a single layer on a foil-lined baking sheet. Place in 400 degree oven for 45 minutes, stirring occsionlly. Vegetables will have caramelly-brown edges when ready. Toss vegetables with Horseradish-Thyme Butter and serve.

Horseradish-Thyme Butter

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 tablespoon prepared horseradish

1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme

2 teaspoons sherry vinegar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1. In a small skillet over low heat, melt butter. Add prepared horseradish, thyme, sherry vinegar and salt. Use  whisk to thoroughly combine. Pour butter over warm roasted vegetables and serve.

Text and images copyright 2012, Lucy Mercer.

Incredible, edible egg salad

Egg salad is a humble and filling concoction. It can be as simple as leftover hard-boiled eggs and a jar of Hellmann’s or, with a little finesse, a show-off sandwich spread and star of an elegant appetizer. The secret is to employ the magic of the eggs, letting eggs do double duty as the bulk of the salad and the binder, which means, in this case, making mayonnaise from scratch. Mayonnaise from scratch need hold no fear for the home cook. One fresh egg yolk, less than a cup of fresh oil, a few minutes of your time and a sturdy whisk are all it takes to make a luscious, homemade mayonnaise that will elevate your egg salad from ho-hum to va-va-va-voom.

Pay attention to the basics when making your egg salad sandwich. Eggs should be properly boiled, no mineral gray ring covering the chalky yolk; whites just set, not rubbery. Creamy mayo, but not too salty. A little kick, maybe pepper, maybe hot sauce. Onion? No way, but perhaps a hint of chive. Crunch? Celery is for sissies and potato salad. I prefer radishes for a peppery bite and crunch. The bread must be toasted, and wheat is the only way to go. The blandness of white bread offers no contrast to the creamy egg salad.

Homemade Mayonnaise

Adapted from the Gourmet Cookbook and online sources

1 very fresh egg yolk

½ teaspoon Dijon mustard

¼ teaspoon salt

¾ cup canola oil

1 ½ teaspoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

Pepper to taste

1. In a small bowl, place egg yolk, mustard and salt. Whisk until combined. Drop by drop, pour and whisk ¼ cup of the canola oil into the mixture. This will take up to 10 minutes (for me, at least). After the oil is thoroughly combined with the yolk, whisk in the vinegar and lemon juice. In a slow stream, add remaining oil. Take your time and make sure you do this right. If the mixture ever looks like it’s separating, stop pouring in oil and whisk the heck out of it, to combine. If you do this right, you will see the mixture change from dark yellow to lighter and creamier, ultimately a thick sauce, not fluffy like the stuff from the jar, but creamy and delicious, just the same.

Hard Boiled Eggs

Everyone and his dog has a recipe for perfect hard-boiled eggs. My advice is to keep trying until you find one that works for you. Here’s my method:

Start with a saucepan and insert a steamer basket (if you have it - this makes it easier to remove the eggs and also keeps them from bouncing around on the bottom of the pot). Place 6 eggs on opened basket, cover with cold water, bring to a rolling boil, cover and cook for less than a minute. Pull covered pan off the heat and turn kitchen timer to 13 minutes. Some folks say 12 minutes, some say 15. All I know is that mine were cooked perfectly at 13 minutes. Have an ice water bath nearby and plunge the cooked eggs into the cold water. When cool enough to handle, peel away the shells. Old eggs are easier to peel due to the air pocket, fresher eggs stubbornly hang on to their shells.

Egg Salad

½ cup homemade mayonnaise

6 hard-boiled eggs

Salt and pepper to taste

2 teaspoons chopped chives

thinly sliced radishes

Assemble sandwich:

1. To properly chop the eggs, I employ the same tool that I use to make a pie crust: a pastry blender. Halve the boiled eggs into a bowl and mash them up with the blender, you may also use a fork.

2. While mixing the spread, toast the wheat bread, use homemade if available.

3. Gently fold the chopped eggs into the mayonnise. Texture is what you’re after. Taste and correct seasoning. It may need more mayo for moisture or acid for contrast. Will probably definitely need pepper.

4. Spread a thin layer of mayo on bread. Then layer radishes, then egg salad. Apply lid to sandwich. Grab a good book, pull up to the counter and tuck in.

Oh, and here's the bonus: a canape: Egg Salad with Chives on Radish Rounds. How simple is this, a baby spoonful of egg salad on a sliced radish, with a sliver of chive on top?

Text & images copyright 2010, Lucy Mercer.

Of Radishes and Rothko

If Rothko designed vegetables, these watermelon radishes from Farmers Fresh would be the result. Stunning magenta interiors, encased in white and celadon. The raw bite is peppery; thin slices add punch to an otherwise ordinary suppertime salad. Sauteed with a bit of butter and finished with salt and pepper, they are earthy, more like beets.

I decided to add them to a slaw, made with carrots and last week's kohlrabi. The dressing was simple: three tablespoons white wine vinegar, one teaspoon Dijon mustard and one teaspoon honey (from the CSA New Member pack, Wally B.'s honey). I think that's a trifecta, isn't it? Using three CSA items in one dish?

The peppery radish taste got lost in the slaw, which I consider a good thing. Check out the bowl of color: orange carrots and magenta radishes with creamy white Kohlrabi matchsticks.

A Box Full of Spring

(Above) Watermelon Radishes

(above) Sugar Snap Peas


(Above) Strawberries surrounded by mint,
lettuce and collard greens.

Opening today's CSA box was like a snapshot of spring: butter lettuce, watermelon radishes, sugar snap peas, and strawberries. Sweet potatoes and collard greens rounded out the bounty.

This is my plan of action:

1. Strawberries. Gobble gobble. I'm not a big fan of cooked strawberries. The color goes to mud and the texture is indescribably unappealing. Fresh berries need so little care to make them edible. I hull and slice them, wash and dry them, then place the berries in a container in the fridge awaiting snackers. Nice to offer the girls fresh strawberries with their morning toast or maybe a few bites to stall them while I cook supper.

2. Collard Greens. Collards are one of my favorite foods. They are certainly this green-loving girl's favorite green. As much as I love Southern-style greens cooked with pork, I'll probably stir-saute these in olive oil with a bit o' garlic. Serve with ham and homemade mac and cheese.

3. Mint tips. The fragrant, pointy tips of the mint plant. A nice change from the chocolate mint which is taking over my front flower bed. I'm a little stumped on how to use this. It's a little late for Derby Day and mint juleps. (Don't even get me started on the Sterling julep cups that by all rights should be mine.) My trusty Gourmet Cookbook offers three suggestions: roasted lamb with new potatoes and English mint sauce, summer fruit salad with mint sugar, and minted peas and onions. The mint sugar for the fruit salad looks to be a winner - perhaps the strawberries will last long enough for a shower of mint sugar.

4. Lettuce. A pretty, fluttery rose-like flower of butter lettuce. Salad on the hoof, in a manner of speaking.

5. Sugar Snap Peas. Maybe I should use the mint with Sugar Snap Peas? I'm inclined to go with shallot sauteed in butter and then a few minutes with the peas. Like strawberries, they are so perfect, they require very little work.

6. Radishes, watermelon variety, with greens. These are fun to slice, rather like pastel version of the showy Chioggia radishes. Really peppery bite, but radishes are not meant to be candy. Roasting is an option. Gourmet Cookbook braises the radishes and serves them with raspberry vinegar. Some will be sliced thin and used on salads. The greens are peppery also, and will be stir-fried with some chard.

7. Sweet Potatoes. An All-South meal is coming together here - ham, mac and cheese, and collard greens, to be finished off with Sweet Potato Pie (that song will be running through my head for days). The pate brisee is already in the fridge and the sweet potatoes are roasted. I'll make Ma Ma's Sweet Potato Custard Pie from "Beans, Greens and Sweet Georgia Peaches" by Damon Lee Fowler, one of my favorite Southern cookbooks. He's a man who knows pies.