RECIPE: Red Radish Salad For Christmas

December 9, 2011 at 7:48 am · Filed under Christmas, Recipes, Vegetables-Salads-Herbs

At the Fat Radish restaurant in New York City, you may find radish salad year-round. It’s delicious anytime.

During holiday season, radishes and greens deliver Christmas colors: a bright red exterior, crunchy slices and some zippy, peppery heat (the heat dissipates when radishes are cooked).

First pick your favorite greens: We like a mix of arugula, romaine and watercress; plus some red leaf lettuce, when we can find it.

Beyond the radishes, you can add more red color with cherry and grape tomatoes (you can cut cherry tomatoes in half), red bell pepper strips or dice and radicchio.

We also like to snip in a tablespoon of fresh herbs: basil, cilantro, chives and/or parsley. They’re the best way we know to brighten up a salad with “something special.”

Finally, we add a splash of yellow, via cherry and grape tomatoes, yellow bell peppers and/or a slice of starfruit.

It’s easy to make a salad in holiday colors. Photo courtesy The Fat Radish | NYC.

We dress the salad with a vinaigrette: 3 parts olive oil, 1 part red wine vinegar or lime juice and 1/8 teaspoon Dijon mustard, seasoned to taste with salt and pepper.

You can also use the radishes to make:

A red and green crudité platter* with a holiday-green spinach dip

An open-face tea sandwich or hors d’oeuvre: buttered toast triangles or crusty bread slices sprinkled with sea salt and topped with radish slices and a leaf of basil or arugula

A bright garnish, whole or halved, on plates and platters

A “tree ornament” garnish on a Bloody Mary/Virgin Mary or other savory cocktail (notch and place on the glass rim)

Find more of our favorite salad recipes.

*Other veggies for a red-and-green crudité platter: red and green bell peppers; cherry or grape tomatoes in red, orange and yellow; green beans and snow peas. We find the venerable celery stalks and cucumber slices to be too pale for Christmas green, but if you like them, add them.

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