I've never seen radishes like these. The radishes I know are a dull grey, with a watery bite that's more aftertaste than taste. But even slivered unceremoniously on a plastic plate sitting on a produce box, these were different. Their flesh was a wild red set off by a border of bright white. And they tasted like what all those radishes I've tasted in the past have been gesturing towards: Bright and peppery and spicy, like fruit that had finally decided to stop screwing around and make something of itself. Lunch today was a product of my earlier
post on farmer's markets. After hitting publish, I headed down to Dupont to wander through the stands, and ended up with, among other things, a big bag of arugula and five red meat radishes. In part, I grabbed both to test the thesis of my last post: I've never used either. I don't make salads, so I never really saw a use for radishes. Same with arugula, which I decided to buy in honor of the end of the election. But after confidently telling all of you to just grab whatever looks good and worry about it later, I couldn't really let that stop the purchase.I also picked up some fresh mozzarella from one of the creameries, some garlic, and a baguette. My general farmer's market lunch is a caprese sandwich, but the tomatoes are falling out of season and my basil isn't regenerating like it did during the warm months of summer. But why does a caprese have to have tomato? Or for that matter, basil?Once home, I cut the largest radish into thick slices, arranged the pieces on a plate, and sprinkled them with thick flakes of kosher salt. I combined a couple handfuls of arugula (probably four or so cups worth), some toasted pine nuts, some crushed garlic, a third of a cup of olive oil, salt, and pepper in the food processor. The resulting pesto was good but, not quite sharp enough to offset the mozzarella. So I cut up another radish and added it to the proceedings. That gave it the fresh bite it needed.
I spooned that onto the bottom half of my bread, sliced some thick pieces of mozzarella, laid them on top of the pesto, then took the salted radish slices and arranged them on the mozzarella. The combination worked perfectly. The normal caprese sandwich is rich mozzarella cut with the acid of the tomatoes and sweetened by the basil. But the juice from the tomato can overwhelm everything. This paired the spicy crunch of the radish with the peppery arugula-radish pesto so that the rich, mild cheese was the central ingredient. It was the best lunch I've made from the farmer's market.
