For a long time, I was misguided. I have repented my ways and am attempting to make amends.

Yes. I’m talking about radishes.

I really used to dislike them – too crunchy, too accrid on my tongue. To own the truth, I still can’t eat a big chunk of radish, especially if it’s very spicy. But when they’re thinly sliced into a salad like this one, these crispy red and white root vegetables are absolute perfection.

In France, radishes are eaten as an after-school snack, dipped into coarse salt and soft butter. The simple combination of those flavors – radish, butter, salt – inspired this beautifully quick salad. Ameir and I liked this so much that we ate the whole bowl of it, and I went back to the store the next day to buy two more bunches of radish. And yes, we ate all of that, too.

This is a technique more than a recipe. I didn’t make exact measurements, but was just tasting and admiring colors to see how much of an ingredient to add.

The parsley compliments the crunch and pepperiness of the radish. Altogether, the two make a pretty strong flavor profile. Enter bread, butter, and cheese.

The salad is piled on top of buttered and toasted sourdough toasts. I suppose you could make croutons out of them and eat the whole thing from a big bowl. The toasted, buttery bread provides another kind of crunch, but a little warmth and softness to counteract the possible harshness of the radish and parsley.

The cheese is the simplest but most important part, I think. I picked a classic syrian cheese, which has the light flavor of ricotta but the texture of a harder buffalo mozarella. I don’t mix the cheese in, but leave it in big crumbles on the side to pop into your mouth in between bites of salad-atop-bread.

The salad is dressed very simply – olive oil and balsamic. The former provides a fruity sweetness, the latter a sweet-tart tang.

Recipe after the link (more…)