Success: Quick Pickled Radishes by Tyler Florence

So for my first test I wanted to try something easy and what could be easier that refrigerator pickles?  I had some radishes come ripe in the garden so it was a good time to try this.

I like Tyler Florence, I watch his show every Saturday morning at 9am and I was lucky enough to meet him once at an event, nice guy, really down to earth.


I am happy to report that this recipe was easy to follow and turned out just like he said.

Ingredients

• 4 bunches radishes, washed and spit down the middle with a little stem (about 1/2-inch) still attached

Pickling mix:

• 1 quart champagne vinegar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup pickling spices
• 2 cloves smashed garlic
• 2 stems fresh wild fennel (optional if you don't have it, or use 2 tablespoons dried fennel seed)

Directions

Take a large deep dish and lay the radishes out in it. In a large pot add the pickling ingredients and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and pour the boiling mix over the radishes in each dish. Cover tightly with plastic wrap immediately and set aside. Once cooled to room temperature, strain and serve.

So I did one thing differently.  Instead of covering them tightly with plastic wrap I put them straight into jars, so I could gift two and keep one.


I must say I tried them today and they are good, a bit sweet but the heat comes through like a radish should.  I wanted more of a spicy Mexican pickled radish but, I am happily going to eat these guys, the're good.

SUCCESS!

Lets Start at the Beginning

indeed a very good place to start...

The other day I was looking for a recipe for a pork loin that I had in my fridge. The book I grabbed is one I grab often, well at least to look at pictures... So I took this cookbook of a well known TV personality, we will call her Schmarta, yeah that is it, Schmarta as to not offend. I looked in the index for a recipe for pork loin wrapped in bacon. Armed with the page number I went to that page, but that page was in the vegetable section and not for my pork. I checked it twice and even had someone else look at it. The page number listed in the index was wrong. I moved about 50 pages forward to find the pork section and sadly my recipe was no where to be found. Now there was a similar one but it was pancetta not bacon, NO DEAL SCHMARTA!

It got me thinking, how many times have I been even adventurous enough to open a cook book let alone try to recreate what my idols create every day in print and on television? How many times am I actually successful at following these instructions? Are my failures the result of bad recipes, bad editing or is it, god forbid, ME?

So here I am your novice cook, in my novice kitchen testing recipes from those who dare to share. After spending too much time looking at those cook books and watching those shows on Food TV I am finally happy to announce that I will be testing to see if what you see and read can actually be accomplished by your average house hold variety chef.  Hoping for more success over failure, but my loss will be your gain.

Cheers,

Cenzo