Cook radishes?

Week 2: radishes, spinach, head of lettuce, baby lettuce

Raw Radishes
I have never really liked radishes, but I always like to keep my mind open to change. When we received radishes in our first farm share pick-up, I tasted each color raw to see if I liked them. I enjoyed tasting the fine differences in the flavor of the different colors, but I still didn't quite like the taste. For those that like it, there are a ton of recipes out there that incorporate raw radishes in salads and other dishes. My challenge was finding a good recipe for cooking radishes.

Cooked Radishes
Aside from cooking radishes in stews, I was hard pressed to find a good recipe for cooked radishes as a vegetable side dish. I ended up finding a recipe for braised radishes that looked good. When I tried it out, I was very pleasantly surprised. The radishes lost their bite and were much more palatable to me after they had been cooked. I read somewhere that the taste of cooked radishes is similar to brussel sprouts, which I would have to agree with. Also, the recipe I ended up using was similar to my favorite recipe for brussel sprouts, so it all made a lot of sense.

Radish Greens
The first time I cooked radishes, I cut off the greens and threw them away. Big waste! The second time, I realized that the radish green could be eaten and were quite tasty, so I added them to the radish dish at the very end to wilt them and mix them in with the other ingredients and they were super delish.

Recipe
Please see below for the recipe I used. I think it would be good with a splash of white wine as well, but I didn't have any on hand, so I didn't include it in the recipe. I like things sweet, but it you prefer, you can cut down the sugar to your taste. The more you cook the radishes the less bite and crunch they have, so you can also dial that in to your own preferences.

Ingredients:
1 bunch of radishes
3/4 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 scallions, chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon sugar
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Soak radishes in cold water to freshen up the roots and greens. Cut off the greens and put them aside. Trim the top and bottom of the radishes and quarter them. Place radishes in a skillet with stock, olive oil, scallions, garlic, sugar, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium. Cook uncovered about 8-10 minutes until radishes are tender and the stock is cooked down.