Tarragon Radish Quick Pickles

These days, peas are just around the corner. I ate one yesterday, on the last day of May. While the plants have struggled in the hot spring weather and are still short, some just a foot and a half tall, and even though the snap peas didn't germinate fantastically and look scraggly along the fence, with big gaps between them, it was a delicious and satisfying moment. So we might not have as many peas as we hoped--I am happy for what we have! Last year, we didn't plant any.

We planted thirty-two tomato plants outside last night, and the greenhouse--now home to eight tomato plants--feels so spacious sans seeding tables and the mini forest of potted tomatoes that lived on top of them for two months. Don't tell me forty tomato plants is overboard. I still don't trust that they all will make it, not after last year's rotting-tomato-disease fiasco, and this way I am pretty sure, barring wholesale disaster, we will at least have some. And if they all end up producing, I will achieve tomato nirvana.

Meanwhile, we're eating lots of cherry belle radishes, hailstone radishes, and purple-top turnips. When you catch the turnips young, maybe golf-ball size, they are shockingly sweet and sugary, with just a hint of a snap in the aftertaste.

But I wanted to write about cherry belle radishes. These beauties mature after just twenty-five days, which goes by so fast that it's easy to miss them in their prime--as I almost did with the full-grown cache I discovered yesterday. Besides being quick to grow, they are low maintenance and so satisfyingly red and round and juicy. It seems almost a shame to do anything to them besides slice them into a salad--as much as we like sautéing them quickly in butter and eating them just barely translucent and still a little crunchy, any cooking turns that firehouse red color a sort of lame pink. Pickling does the same; the pigments stain their pure-white insides pinkish, too, after about twenty-four hours.

But I can't resist quick pickles--a first milestone in the garden season, when you have some extra to "put up" rather than just enough for a lunch salad or dinner side. I have to put "put up" in quotation marks because, let's face it, the jar will be empty in less than a week!

Tarragon Radish Quick Pickles 
The fresh tarragon adds a hint of licorice, and the longer you let the pickles sit in the fridge, the more licorice-y they will taste. 

I like these pickles as a condiment for stir-fried noodles, especially if you add a little hoisin sauce--the sweetness of the hoisin plus the tangy tartness of the radishes is addictive. Or fold them into a salad with avocado, Gorgonzola cheese, and almonds—the pickles brighten all that richness to make a perfect dinner on a hot June evening. 

About 20 cherry belle radishes, cleaned and sliced thin
A few sprigs fresh tarragon
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup honey
A pinch of red pepper flakes

Wash and dry a pint jar, then fill it with radishes. Stuff the tarragon down the sides. In a small saucepan, combine the water, red wine vinegar, honey, and red pepper flakes, and bring just to a boil. Pour the vinegar mixture over the radishes, fit a lid on the jar, and let cool to room temperature. Refrigerate for twenty-four hours before eating.

The quick pickles will keep for a week or two in the fridge.