Watermelon Radish

I spent this weekend in one of the most beautiful places on earth, the Sunshine Coast, not to be confused with the Sunshine Coast in Australia this is in British Columbia Canada.  I am lucky enough to have a friend with a place up there.  This weekend She and I ran away from real life and carpets being laid, and spent a restful weekend in Paradise.  She went ahead of me and greeted me with a wonderful dinner on Friday night and introduced me to a new food item Watermelon radishes.

Red cabbage slaw containing watermelon radish.

She had made pork chops in a mustard sauce served with potato and fennel gratin and a coleslaw which contained an ingredient that I had never had before, when asked she told me they were watermelon radishes and came from the IGA right there in Maderia Park.  The next day I had to go buy another one, and we ate it with almost everything that we had on the weekend.

Uncut watermelon radish

It looks quite boring in it's uncut form, but when you cut it open behold the beauty.

Cut open you can see how it gets it's name notice the wine bottle for scale

After doing some research I found out that it is in the same family as turnip and horseradish it is an heirloom variety of the daikon radish and may also be known as a shinrimei, Asian red meat or beauty heart among other names. But tastes like a mild regular radish not as hot but the same flavour maybe a little sweeter.  Check this watermelon radish chips with cumin salt It looks great but we just sliced them thin and ate them raw.  And took lots of pictures.

Radishes posing in the sunshine and enjoying the view.

And this is the view.

Any way I sliced them thinly and tossed them with olive oil white wine vinegar, dijon mustard and salt.

Watermelon radish tossed with green onion and vinaigrette

Then I tossed this with a box of mixed young greens and half an avacado.  

A wonderful light salad 

We had this with some chicken kebabs we found already marinating in the freezer.  (I think I had something to do with that.)

Chicken kebabs with salsa watching the sun set.

It was a wonderful light meal for a glorious sunny day on the first day of spring with a very special friend. A friend who can introduce you to a new food that you have never heard of before is a true friend indeed.