Pickled Radishes - Lacto-fermented (Probiotic) & Paleo!

Perhaps you have a bushel full of radishes that you have plucked from the soil in your garden.  Or you may have gone a bit overboard just bought a bit too many radishes at the farmers market.  Either way, I have a suggestion for your consumption of said radishes:  Pickled Radishes!

[I do like very thinly sliced raw radishes on my salads and such, but most of the time raw radishes are a bit too "hot" for my palate.  So, of course, you can eat them raw, if that's your thing.  You can roast them up with other veggies in the oven.  You can also sauté them in some butter/ghee, salt and pepper.  Cooking them, in general, gives them a much more smooth, mild flavor.  Sautéed Radishes are one of my FAVORITE ways the eat a radish, second only to pickled.]

Pickles - Pickles - Pickles

You've probably had many different kinds of pickles in your life.  There's dill pickles, gherkins, bread and butter pickles.  I'm guessing you've probably also had other non-cucumber pickled items: sauerkraut, kimchi, pickled garlic, pickled watermelon rinds, hot Mexican-style pickled carrots, and many others.  Have you had pickled radishes before?

When radishes are pickled, the flavor becomes mild, smooth and almost buttery.  It still tastes like a pickle, but like no other pickle you've ever had.

Grass-fed grilled sirloin steak with pickled radishes, carrots, Romain and red-leaf lettuce, black olives, and 5 Cheese Garlic Spread from River Valley Kitchens

Pickling radishes (this recipe at least) uses Lacto-fermentation.  Feel free to check out the Wikipedia site for it here.  Basically,  you use water and salt.  No vinegar.  For Dill Pickles you would also add fresh dill, garlic, and pickling spices.  You can check out Sandor Katz's Book "Wild Fermentation" for a ton more info on all kinds of pickling.  (You can also google him, and there are a bunch of recipes on the web.)

Also, on a side note, pickled radishes are SO EASY!!!!  Oh my gosh.  You'll make them and literally be AMAZED at how low effort and quick these steps are.  Ready?

Start with a big bunch of radishes and a large mason jar with a regular 1 piece lid (not the kind that have a top and a seal, just one piece).  Wash and cut up your radishes into the size pieces you'd like your pickles to be in.  I like to do mine in bite size pieces.

Place your pickles in the bottom of your mason jar and cover with a thin layer of kosher salt.  I had about 3/4 of a quart jar full of radishes and used about 3 tablespoons of salt.  DO NOT ADD WATER YET!  Cover the top with cheese cloth and either tie a string around it or use a rubber band to make sure no bugs can get inside.

Wait 24 hours.  Take off the cheese cloth, and fill the entire jar to the tippy-ippy top.  If possible use filtered water, as chlorine may not allow your lacto-fermentation to do its thing correctly.  Place your metal lid on the top and screw it on, but not too tight.  Flip the jar upside down on your counter, on top of a rag or old towel.  SLOWLY and CAREFULLY open the lid until you see a little water come up around the edges of the jar.  This means that you have made a seal.

Don't touch this for a week.  Put a sign up if you need to, but just leave it alone and keep it out of direct sunlight.  After a week, BEFORE PICKING IT UP, screw the lid back on - then flip it right side up and take the lid off.  The odor may be quite foreign to you, but I'm telling you, these little bites of love will leave you craving more when they are all gone.

DO NOT PUT YOUR FINGERS OR USED UTENSILS IN THE JAR.  Don't do it.  There may be bacteria on those items and could ruin your pickles.  Use a CLEAN spoon and spoon your pickled radishes out into smaller mason jars (with their juice - if you need more liquid to have these jars full up to the top, add more filtered water) and then seal them up.  Stick them in the fridge and they should last up to (and maybe beyond) 6 months.  Enjoy!