Tag: radishes

Radish Leaf Pesto

In addition to eating the bulbs of the radishes, the leaves are also edible. I heartily endorse Clotilde Dusoulier’s Radish Leaf Pesto. The slight spiciness of the leaves gives it a delightful frisson.

Radish leaf pesto.

Pesto recipes are pretty flexible. I added some fresh cilantro from the garden, some frozen basil leaves, used ground almonds for the nut component, a bit of Manchego for the cheese, and doubled the garlic. I also added a little white wine to reduce the viscosity. I quite liked the end result — we had it on pasta — even if some others though it was a little too adventurous.

Radishes

Radishes ready for harvest.

The radishes did well this year. Planted in containers on March 29th (in St. Louis, USA), they were harvested one month later. The short, early season means that they’re a workable crop for school. Students can plant, harvest, and consume them all within a semester.

The CDC’s Fruit and Vegetable of the Month website has a little history, some information about the varieties, nutritional information, recipes, and more information about radishes. The University of Illinois Extension also has information about planting and growing.

NutritionData.self.com has some very nice graphical representations of the nutritional value of the food (although their serving size is 1 cup of slices, which seems a bit much).

These sites, however, focus on the radish bulbs, and not on the fact that the leaves are edible. Radish Leaf Pesto is quite good.

Harvested radishes. Both the red bulbs and the green leaves are edible. You'll note that radishes also spot a long tap-root.