Radish fruits, Mungrey or Singrey and a nice quick stir fry with them...




There are a few winter special green vegetables which can be seen only for these 2-3 months, Radish fruits(technically called siliqua) are one such variety. There are a few varieties available, one is abut 10 inches long and green , another the same length but a beautiful purple red colored. This purple red colored one is called Rat tailed radish too.


Rat tailed radish is an awful name I think. But this is one vegetables the mooli haters can turn to owing to it's crisp texture, just the right piquancy and subdued smell, not to forget the detox qualities and some great nutritional assets. Know more about this wonderful green here ...

The global community of Kitchen gardeners have posted an interesting account of this vegetable named offensively as Rat tailed radish , a beautiful picture and some nice recipes in the end of the post are worth trying.
A food history blog writes how this heirloom vegetable was pickled in Europe and some aristocrats valued is so much that there were special silver pots with beautiful carving of this plant over the lid to serve pickle made from these pods.

My recipe for this post is more like a salad or a crunchy stir fry served as a part of a detox meal.


I found a smaller variety one day which is tastier, fresh and rich green about 3-4 inches in length. This particular variety is very tasty when used raw in salads and does not need to be cooked till mushy,  a half cooked crunchy texture works best with it. I make a stir fry with this vegetable using boiled potatoes too and was trying to find a few pictures I have from last year or the year before that.

This time I wanted to enhance the texture of  Singrey with coconut to make a quick stir fry as I like it just half cooked as I said. The stir fry was so good I ended up cooking it some 5 times this winter. I buy about a kilo of this vegetable for the two of us and keep making either a salad, raita , or this stir fry many times. For this stir fry  you can use the slightly stale radish pods too as they have to be cooked a bit. Having said that, these pods keep well in the fridge cling wrapped for about 2 weeks. For raw salads they need to be absolutely fresh looking.

Not just a quick recipe, it requires minimal ingredients too. If you have some frozen bits of coconut in your freezer, you can rustle up the recipe in just five minutes. Minus the chopping time that is. Chopping takes about 5 more minutes.

Ingredients...

chopped radish pods 1.5 cups
chopped onions 1/4 cup
chopped ginger 1 tbsp or a bit more
chopped green chillies 2 tsp or to taste
bits of coconut 3 tbsp or to taste
salt and lots of freshly milled pepper
mustard or sesame oil to cook 1 tsp






Chopping both the onions and radish pods in similar size is good as they cook almost together. I prefer about 1-1.4 cm bits. Irregularly chopped is fine.




The coconut bits, ginger and green chillies have to be pulsed without water in a grinder so they become shredded or coarsely ground. There should not be any coconut milk extracted nor it should make a paste.You can add some black pepper corns into this grinder if you don't want to mill them freshly.


Cooking procedure...

Once the chopping and grinding is done , cooking is a breeze for this and should be reserved for the last moment if you want it warm and fresh, the way I like it. Although this recipe reheats well too.

Heat the oil in a pan, add the chopped vegetables at once with salt and stir fry for a couple of minutes.

Add the ground/shredded coconut-ginger mixture over it and mix well while cooking it for another couple of minutes. The onions turn just translucent and the radish pods become shiny and half cooked. Just the time to take it off heat and serve immediately.


Such quick tasty recipes get repeated easily till you get the vegetable in he season. Don't miss the chance of getting it fresh.  A raita made with this vegetables is coming next so stay tuned.

Comments

  1. I cooked with these rat-tailed radishes a few months ago for the first time. loved the piquant taste! I stir fried it too, but with some sesame seeds, vinegar, salt, pepper, and a dash of brown sugar. it was delicious!

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  2. Is this called "dingri" ? The ones here are called the "beans" of raddishes , and taste wonderful even if you just munch them raw. If these are the same thing, then a salad of grated carrots, chopped onions, tomatoes, chopped dingris (like in your photo), all mixed with a bit of roasted peanut powder, lemon juice,salt, shredded chillies, and a decent tadka of kadhipatta with mustard seeds and jeera , tastes out of this world. :-)

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  3. Thanks for the new recipe Suranga....so mungri, singri and dingri all similar sounding names :-)
    Tasty it is , as a salad i love it with nay nuts added to it.

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  4. I usually don't buy this vegetable since I used to find that it turns totally mushy if cooked. But this recipe looks interesting. A dash of jeera to the coconut mixture (which we use in many stir fry veggies) will give it added flavour. You could try it the next time.

    And Rat-tailed radish does sound awful :D

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  5. Thanks Zephyr, I do add some jeera to this mix when i cook beans this way, have those pictures in my drafts too but for these tasty pods i feel like preserving their own taste as it's not being cooked properly, just a quick two minutes stir frying.

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