Bacon Wrapped Roasted Radishes

Author Notes: I was a weird kid. Instead of managing a lemonade stand, I sold radishes. I piled the first spring harvest into my sister’s red wagon then wheeled it to the front sidewalk and added a cardboard sign advertising “Radishes 1¢.” I didn’t get many customers.

In the end my mother bought my entire crop. This actually worked out pretty well for me, as I am and always have been a radish fiend. I sat on the front stoop dipping the peppery red and white orbs into a dish of salt and all was right with my world.

Roasted radishes have been making the rounds for a few years now. Ravers claim that heating radishes gives them new life. They soften. They mellow. They become buttery. Being a radish aficionado I was nervous about ruining a tasty orb by cooking it. Then it occurred to me that wrapping the radishes with bacon might sweeten the experience. The result was soft tasty radishes (almost like a Brussels sprout-lite) that soaked up just enough of the salt-savory bacon flavor to balance the sweet barbecue.

—culturalconstruct

Makes: 12 single radishes