black radish

black radishes are one of my food goals for this project. i've been seeing them a lot in fancy food articles. don't think these are the same as the gigantic european ones they mention in the articles, but they were close enough to try.
in a word, they're woody. too firm for the salad i tried them in raw (see next post). and not as flavorful as an everyday radish.

they were really interesting cooked, though. tried just the radish part from this recipe: http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Duck-Foie-Gras-in-Classic-Apicius-Style-in-Sweet-and-Sour-Sauce-with-Black-Radish-Confit it brought out a cabbage flavor in the radishes. kind of like chewy warm coleslaw in a sticky sweet sauce. i don't even know how to describe it. different, but not bad. i kept eating pieces trying to come up with a description. it was a little like that sweet broccoli salad with bacon and raisins they have (had?) at souplantation.

black radish confit: