A new take on an old recipe. Fried Radishes with Herbs and not Quark

Northwest 4 or 5, increasing 6 or 7 for a time.

Slight or moderate.

Thundery showers at first.

Good, occasionally poor at first.

It is a bit late for a typical spring recipe; however we seem to have moved from spring fast-forward to late autumn, so I can kind of justify this recipe on the grounds that I am a bit early. 

As in the UK, new potatoes are greeted with glee all over the continent. This was especially true for me as a child. Like many European households we had a cellar. And in this dark and cold cellar we had a big wooden box which was filled in autumn with potatoes. Every family had their own “potato man”, who just showed up each year in order to get us ready for winter. He filled the huge box full of “tatties” and covered it with soil. And from that day on it was my task to go daily into the cellar and get the potatoes up. 

I hated it. Not because I was scared of the darkness or the spiders, but the potato sprouts freaked me out. If you are a bit younger than I am, you probably have no clue what I am talking about. You don’t see potatoes which have sprouts in supermarkets; they are a product of long storage and look a bit like this.

The sprouts are toxic and need to be removed, but the potato is still fine. But having to dig (especially after a long winter) in the box and get to the potatoes while these sprouts touch your hand....I still shiver thinking about it.

The arrival of the new crop of potatoes was thus a case for celebration for me. The few leftover old potatoes were given to a pig farmer and in spring and summer potatoes were bought at the market. Until the potato man showed up again..

There was a second reason I loved the arrival of new potatoes, its means boiled potatoes with herbs and quark, a very traditional spring recipe. There is no real equivalent for quark in the UK; it is neither cottage cheese nor curd.

But you can buy it here in the supermarkets, often next to the Italian ricotta. Each family had their own recipe how to proceed with the quark, we cut enormous amounts of fresh herbs into it, salted it, added cream and stirred it. The potatoes were cooked in their skin, served with the quark, fresh salted cold butter and radishes.

A few days ago, a friend of mine send me an article from the German newspaper “Die Zeit”, a weekly.

It covered the story of a celebrity chef who gave up cooking in his famous restaurant and focuses now on traditional recipes in a kind of pop-up venture. At the bottom was a very short recipe, but it made me sit up. His take on that old favourite was to fry the radishes and serve them with herbs and soft goats cheese. I have never heard of frying radishes, so obviously I had to try it. However there was a problem. Many of my friends don’t like goat`s cheese; and I cook and blog also for my friends.  On the other hand, I though quark alone won’t cut it. If you fry the radishes (so I thought) you mellow their sharp taste, so you need something sharper than quark (probably the reason he uses soft goats cheese).

Out came my experimenting hat and I looked at my pot of freshly made labneh and thought: “you are a good starting point”.
But it was not very successful until my gaze fell upon the kefir in the fridge door.

Fried radishes with herbs and not Quark

1 bag or bunch of fresh radishes

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp of butter

1 portion of Labneh (about 6 tbsp), but you can use quark

3 tbsp kefir

1/2 bunch of each chives, parsley, mint, thyme (and dill if you like)

1 squeeze of garlic from a tube or jar (fresh garlic will be too sharp)

salt and white pepper to taste.

First prepare the dairy. Separate the bunch of chives in two and keep one part aside. Cut all the other herbs into a bowl, add the Labneh, salt, pepper and the garlic. Pour the kefir over and mix thoroughly. Chill for at least 10 minutes in the fridge, but you can also prepare it well in advance.

When you are ready to eat, top and tail the radishes and cut them horizontally in half. Heat in a small pan the olive oil and butter, and, once the butter is foaming, add carefully the radishes with the cut side down. Cook for about 5 minutes on medium high until they are slightly brown, turn the radishes and cook for another 2 minutes. Drain them and shake the oil well off. Cut the rest of the chives and sprinkle over it and arrange several tbsp of you herb dairy mixture next to it.

Make sure you eat radish and quark together, but do try first the cooked radishes.

Verdict:

This is amazing. Cooked radishes taste like very mellow and extremely juicy turnips. It is like a new vegetable and one I don’t want to give up. I can see a future for them in winter stews, to give them some lightness where turnips make it heavy.

The (heavy herbed) Labneh with kefir was a full success as well. More tart than quark, and it did cut nicely through the radishes, but without the goat taste. In fact it was so good, that I might replace my quark with it. Definitely a spring and summer dish.

Teaser:

Of course you can eat it with freshly boiled potatoes or bread. And I bet it will be nice. But I had it with something different (just don’t want to overload today`s post). Just wait for a day or two and you can add another OMG this divine component to it. I promise it will be worth the wait.