Winter salad with carrots, black radish, and bean sprouts

The black radish is so fresh right now -- and packed with such a good list of minerals and vitamins -- that Juliette is always looking for ways to use them. The sharp, tangy bite that you get when the radishes are eaten raw, to me this makes it hard to see them as good candidates for a fresh salad to go with a bowl of soup made with this week's butternut squash. The first and only time I tried eating a small bit raw, all I could think of was water and how much it was like eating horseradish.

Juliette came up with a good idea. She cut the radish into a couple of dozen slices and steamed them with a couple of good sized carrots. These she placed on the bluebird plates with a handful of just-germinated sprouts.

At the table, she handed me the little pitcher of sauce that she had made up and asked me to give it a stir with my fork. The sauce: some olive oil and about five or six others in small amounts (colza, hempseed, walnut, etc.) along with some puree of young garlic, soy sauce, and celery salt. The proportions of the ingredients depend on each day's whim and what's available.

Steaming the black radish did the trick. Although there is not much flavor, the slices of radish are firm, even crunchy, but most of all, healthy.

(We have quit using vinegar for salads, or for anything else, except for cleaning things around the house.)

More to come.