Pithy radishes can be redeemed by pickling

[I purchased a kilogram of radish seeds some months ago ... great price when bought in bulk]

Pithy radishes aren't very appetizing and even firm radishes don't stay fresh very long after harvesting.

All radishes are improved by pickling and the pickles are crisp for many weeks.


Pickle:
2 parts radish, 1 part carrot (or vice-versa) either julienned or rough-chopped

1 cup water
1 cup vinegar            }  heated, dissolved, cooled.
1 cup white sugar

Then into jars.

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The radishes don't need to be peeled, but carrot skin goes brown quickly if even a sliver is left on.

Takes 2 or 3 days to develop a nice lacto-ferment flavor.
Jars should be shaken regularly so the pickle juice coats the lid and submerges the veg.

I enjoy the pickles as an appetizer, while I'm waiting on a meal to finish cooking.
There is a lot of chopping involved, so I use a mandolin to finely slice the carrot.

Raw radish really irritates my chronic gastritis, but the pickled version absolutely does not. It loses its sulphur pungence after fermentation.
It's also the only way I can convince anyone else to eat radish.

Hi Jondo, are the radishes still spicy after pickling?  My family won't eat them because of the spiciness, which is a shame because they're so quick and easy to grow.

No, they become perfectly mild.
The pungent sulphuric spiciness is either massively diluted into the liquid or completely negated by perhaps the sugar [calories], vinegar (pH) or fermentation {which transforms compounds similarly to cooking}.

Curiously, the spiciness is all gone by the time I first try the pickle (24hrs), before the fermented taste develops.

The pickle tastes more like commercial 'pickled ginger' than radish.
The radish has the taste of the liquid, pure Sweet and Sour zing (a flavor profile kids would enjoy) - the vegetable merely provides a crunchy texture [and the microbes].

I've so many radishes that my pickles are currently 90% radish, eaten everyday - whereas eating a single raw radish daily would have me doubled over with pain. (IBS, but mainly Gastritis)

Lots of people similarly can't tolerate raw garlic (eg Aioli) but  cooked garlic is fine.

Radishes sure are easy to grow and bulk seed is cheap.
Growing them transformed my small daily trickle of harvested veg into much more abundance - and its satisfying harvesting root crops as an understorey to other food plants, while tomatoes and beans clamber over and around the whole productive mess.