RaDiSHeS RaDiSHeS RaDiSheS - RaDiSH CoNFiT

I love radishes!!  Imagine my surprise when I'm at the store and see these big beautiful bunches of radishes just sitting there begging me to take them home.  But no price for them.  Hmmm ... "Sir ... ?"  I almost hugged him when he told me it was four bunches for a dollar.  I looked at my mom and, as if she could read my mind, she said "You can have four.  We do need to leave some for others."  (If left up to me, I would have bought every one they had haha.)

I'm sure the reason she said only four was because she doesn't really care for them, but she sure has been a trooper every time i stick a piece in front of her, in whatever way I've concocted them, and said "Try it.  I don't like it."  See, I have no problem eating a bunch of them on a salad, but I'm just dead set on convincing her that these are a very yummy vegetable.

I have sauteed them with onions and peppers - very good.  But what else could I do with them?

What popped into my head was those things that I find at certain Krogers - the vegetable chips that I love so much - but that's a completely other story.  One that will follow soon.

I decided to try something different this time.

Confit is usually made with meat.  The meat is salted and slowly cooked in its own fat.  It is then packed into a crock or pot with its cooking fat which preserves the meat.  Since vegetables, obviously, don't have their own fat, I have chosen to cook them with butter.  This one is a little sweet, slightly peppery and a beautiful pink color.  I have to say, it tastes really good on a piece of French bread with some Swiss cheese or aged white American.

You will need:

Radishes (I used a little over 1/2 a pound), the zest and juice of half a lemon, one cutie clementine (the zest plus the fruit), 2 tablespoons sugar, 4 tablespoons butter, sea salt & freshly ground pepper and enough water to cover all of this in the pan.  Instead of juicing the clementine (it was the only citrus fruit I had on hand), I decided to not waste that lovely fruit by just juicing it and instead peeled it, then put the fruit through the food processor, using both the pulp and juice in this recipe.  In my opinion, it needed more - so next time I'm going to be adding one or two more to the mix.

Place all of these ingredients into a shallow pan and put enough water to just cover the ingredients.

Bring these ingredients to a boil over medium heat, then reduce the temperature down so that it is simmering.  Simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

It is done when the liquid has reduced down to about 3 or 4 tablespoons of rich buttery goodness and the radishes are very tender.

Serve warm.

Now I couldn't leave it at just that.  I mean, it was good - I loved it.  It wasn't really what I expected it to be, though.  I expected the radishes to be broken down a bit more.  So I played with it. 

I took the confit - after eating some of those tender radishes and oh-so-yummy buttery mmm (I'm not sure how to describe that hahaha) and put it in the food processor, breaking it down a bit.  Then, with just a little bit more butter, I sauteed it for about 3-4 minutes.  This is very yummy on a sandwich of cheese - and will probably taste good with fish and meat as well.

The next time I make it, I'm going to try cutting the pieces up a little bit smaller before I cook them and see what happens.