Smelling Salts Journal

Taco Twelfth Night: Small-Batch Quick-Pickled Radishes


Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?  – Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

With the family still together under the same roof, we’ve decided to revel in all Twelve Days of Christmas. To that end, for Twelfth Night, we’re eschewing the traditional coin, bean, or ceramic favour hidden in the kind of fruit-cake-doorstop no one will eat (same for tomorrow’s Epiphany galette de rois). Instead, we’re playing board games, making tacos, and mixing seltzer or whatever booze is left in the house with the remains of our last batch of Raspberry Syrup.

Without further ado, and because long stories before recipes (as well as pop-up ads and videos) have never been SSJ’s aesthetic and will have no place here in 2024, here’s my recipe for Small-Batch Quick-Pickled Radishes for our tacos.

Print Recipe

Small-Batch Quick-Pickled Radishes

These radishes make a great topping for tacos, roast meats, and egg dishes.
Servings: 3 half-pints

Ingredients

  • 300 grams radishes [approximately 8 radishes]
  • 1¼ cups cider or white vinegar
  • 1¼ cups water
  • 2 tsp honey
  • 1 tsp salt [I used coarse pickling salt, but practically any salt will do.]
  • 1 tsp peppercorns
  • ½ tsp black or yellow mustard seeds [optional]
  • ½ tsp coriander seeds [optional]
  • 1 kaffir lime leaf per jar [optional]
  • 3 half-pint jars or the equivalent [I use 1 pint and 1 half-pint jar!]

Instructions

  • Slice the radishes thinly with a knife or using a mandoline.
    [We mistakenly left the potato chip insert on our mandoline when slicing the radishes for this post, but we quite loved the results!]
  • Drop the sliced radishes into clean jars.
  • Place all other ingredients into a small pot on the stove and bring to a quick boil, whisking to ensure that the honey and salt have dissolved completely.
  • Use tongs or another utensil to fish out the [optional] kaffir lime leaves and distrubute one to each jar of radishes.
  • Pour the hot pickling brine into your jars of radishes, making sure to distribute the liquid and spices proportionately between them, and making sure that the liquid covers the radishes by approximately ¼ inch.
  • Spoon any remaining dried spices from the pot of brine into the pickle jars, distributing evenly.
  • Allow the jars of pickled radishes to sit, uncovered, until they come to room temperature on the counter.
  • The radishes should will be pickled enough to eat in approximately 2-3 hours.
  • Once cooled, cover the jars and store them in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks.

Notes

I use one pint and one half-pint jar. We eat from the pint jar and give the half-pint as a gift to our guests. Feel free to use whatever clean jars and lids you have on hand.
This is a rather scalable recipe. If you have a few more or less radishes, fill more or less jars and use your math skills to scale the brine appropriately. With that in mind, we’re not hot-water-bath canning, here, so this recipe is not meant for putting up large batches of vegetables or for long-term storage.

Happy 2024, by the way.
SSJ is still, technically on vacay, but we couldn’t help pop in with this bit of good cheer!
Wassail!

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