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Well, we only used about half of our radishes last time for grilling, so we had another ten or so to deal with this weekend.

So many radishes…

Mom and I were in Beaune, France earlier in the year as a bit of a road trip after my study abroad program finished (and by Beaune I was finished with my memoire, so I could actually go out and see the city instead of hiding in the hotel room writing for hours on end), and at the hotel restaurant we had an absolutely fantastic radish soup as an appetizer, which we wanted to try.  So this weekend we did – as promised.

The recipe we used is found here, at Michelle Wright’s Blog, but I’ll reprint it for your convenience.  Photos are mine, all mine.  Mwa ha ha. 

Chilled French Radish Bisque

  • 4 C French Breakfast Radishes, sliced 1/4″ thick
  • 1 C white onion, sliced thin
  • 2 T unsalted butter
  • 1 Bay leaf
  • 1 T rounded, flour
  • 3 C Chicken stock, preferably homemade
  • 1 t Kosher salt
  • 1/2 C Buttermilk
  • 1/2 C French breakfast radishes, grated
  • 2 T Lemon juice, freshly squeezed
  • TT Chives, sliced (TT=to taste)

Ingredients! The lemon and radishes both came from the garden.

Wash the radishes. Remove the tops and slice about a 1/4″ thick. Slice onion as thinly as possible.

Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the onions, bay leaf, and radishes. Cook over low heat about 10 minutes. Do not brown. Add the salt. During the cooking process, the radishes will begin to lose a little of their color, and will render their natural essence.

At this point, add the flour and combine with vegetables. Pour in chicken stock and mix well. Bring to a simmer and cook for 15 additional minutes, covered (important). Remove bay leaf and pour into a blender. Add a towel to the top of the lid to protect against a sudden hot splash or accident. Puree until smooth.

View of the blender. That thing is a chopstick we were using to stir.

Cool soup overnight.

Grate the remaining radishes and add a pinch of salt.

Add the buttermilk and the lemon juice. Stir in grated radish. Pour soup into frozen demi-tasse cups and garnish with chives.

Yields: 16 demi-tasse cup servings; or 16 – 3oz portions.

Recipe is courtesy of: Nick Krug’s The Red Door Farm, via Michelle Wright’s Blog

As per usual, we did a few things differently.  We skipped the bay leaf.  We used vegetable stock rather than chicken stock (they taste basically the same).  We also quartered the recipe, because we don’t really need that much soup, and we didn’t have that many radishes either.  Also, they were the usual American radishes, and not French breakfast radishes, so our soup is a little stronger than theirs.  Also, the original recipe did not specify whether or not to cover the radishes when they were cooking in the broth, so we didn’t, thinking they meant us to cook off the broth.  When we added the buttermilk at the end, the resulting soup was so thick that it stood higher on a spoon than flour would.  So we added more buttermilk until we hit a consistency of the middle range of clam chowder, and it was fine.  So while either way works, you would be well-advised to cover the pan when you’re cooking if you’re trying for the original recipe.

We also let the soup cool before we put it in the blender, since we have a plastic blender and preferred not to have a plastic puddle.  It doesn’t make much difference, I don’t think, since you cool the soup right after anyway.  We also sliced and diced rather than grated the garnish radishes, which made running into them in the soup a little more tangy than grated would have been; especially if you’re working with American radishes, you would probably be better off actually grating.

Not-grated radishes in the foreground.

On an entertaining note, this soup is a rather relentlessly bright pink, so if you’re into that sort of thing you could probably make a fancy bright pink garnish out of this.

I forgot to take a photo after mixing in the buttermilk and before eating, so I had to take a photo of the leftovers. This plus a cup is about the amount you get by quartering the recipe.

Mom and I both had a little dessert bowl of the soup, and thought it was great.  It’s also probably a similar recipe to the one we had in France, though stronger because of the type of radish we used.