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RADISH PODS, TO PICKLE (a simple recipe)
Gather the pods when the seeds within them are fully grown, but soft, i.e., when they are in the condition of green peas. Wash them in salted water, put them into glass bottles or unglazed jars, and pour cold vinegar over them. As the vinegar becomes absorbed, add more, and when the jars are full and the vinegar no longer shrinks, tie down closely, and store in a dry place. The advantage of pickling the pods in this way is that they can be taken from the garden and put into the bottles as they become ready for use. If liked, a blade of mace, an ounce of ginger, and half an ounce of pepper may be put with each pint of vinegar.
A cold vinegar pickle that asks for almost nothing but patience and a steady supply of pods. The whole thing hinges on the pods being caught at the right stage and staying fully covered in vinegar.
- The pods themselvesThese are the green seed pods that form after a radish bolts and flowers, not the root. Pick them when plump and snappable but before the seeds inside firm up; a pod that resists the thumbnail is already too fibrous to pickle.
- Vinegar strengthUse a vinegar labelled 5 per cent acidity, which is what ordinary bottled malt, cider or white wine vinegar gives. Do not dilute it and do not substitute a low-acid "drinking" or artisanal vinegar of unstated strength, since the acid is the only thing preserving the pods.
- Why unglazed jarsVictorian glazes were often lead-bearing, and vinegar leaches lead. Modern glass jars are the obvious choice; avoid decorative glazed stoneware of unknown origin for anything acidic.
- Lids"Tie down closely" would have meant a cover of bladder, paper or waxed cloth tied over the mouth. Use a glass or plastic-lined screw lid instead. Bare metal lids corrode over an acid pickle and will taint it.
- Spice quantitiesAn ounce of bruised dried ginger and half an ounce of peppercorns per pint of vinegar is a heavy dose by current taste; a third of that gives plenty of flavour. The "blade" of mace is one flattened piece of the nutmeg's outer casing, about a teaspoon crumbled.
- Topping upThe pods absorb vinegar for the first week or two and any exposed above the surface will spoil. Check every few days and add more vinegar until the level stops falling, which is what the original means by the vinegar no longer shrinking.
- StorageA cool dark cupboard is the modern equivalent of a dry store; the refrigerator is better still now that we no longer keep pickles as a year-round vegetable substitute. Give them three to four weeks before eating, and use within a few months while the pods still have crunch.
- Yield and useUse -- They serve the same purpose as capers or cornichons: chopped into a sauce, scattered over cold meat, or added to a salad dressing.
Radish seed pods were a known economy of the nineteenth-century kitchen garden, useful because they arrived at the awkward moment when the radish crop had bolted and the roots had gone woody and hot. Gardeners of the period also grew the so-called rat-tailed radish, Raphanus caudatus, raised for its long pods rather than any root at all and offered in nineteenth-century seed catalogues as a pickling plant. Pickled pods were among the domestic stand-ins for capers, which had to be imported from the Mediterranean and cost accordingly. The recipe's own selling point is convenience: because the pods go into cold vinegar as they ripen, the cook fills the jar over several weeks instead of waiting for a single pickling day, a practical concession to a household picking its own produce a handful at a time.