French Bean Watermelon Radish Salad

Beautiful to behold and tasty to eat, this French Bean Watermelon Salad would be a welcome addition to your Easter table or bridal/baby shower feast.

Most weeks I do the grocery shopping on a Friday morning, list in hand, all about moving efficiently through the store and getting home again but occasionally I take a little more time to look for new ingredients. 

A few weeks ago this paid off when I spied watermelon radishes in the produce section. They don’t look like anything much from the outside but the Google image of the inside sold me! I mean, honestly, look how pretty they are! Compared to regular radishes, their taste is mild with just a little hint of bite.

According to the The Kitchn, watermelon radishes are an heirloom variety of daikon radishes and originated in China, where they are called shinrimei. They’re a root vegetable and member of the Brassica family, which also includes arugula, broccoli, and cabbage. Watermelon radishes are larger than regular radishes and can range from the size of a golf ball to that of a softball. Mine was somewhere in between. 

Does your nearby grocery store or market sell these beauties? I hope so!

French Bean Watermelon Radish Salad

This is a fairly simple salad because I wanted to show off the watermelon radish but feel free to add other vegetables, if you’d like. Just toss them in with the green beans to dress them. One of the good things about this salad is that it is just as good the next day. Not all salads can say that!

Ingredients

1/4 small purple onion

Fine sea salt

2 tablespoons white balsamic or cider vinegar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Freshly ground black pepper

10 oz or 285g fine French beans, topped and tailed

1 watermelon radish

2 tablespoons olive oil

Method

Finely slice the onion and add it to your salad bowl along with the vinegar, Dijon mustard, a good pinch of fine sea salt and a few generous grinds of black pepper. 

Use a sharp knife to cut the beans in half on the diagonal. Longer beans can be cut into three. 

Use a sharp knife or a mandolin to slice the watermelon radish thinly. 

Add the olive oil to the onion and vinegar in the salad bowl along. Give it all a real good mix with a fork to make a dressing. 

Put an inch or two of water on to boil in a big pot with a steamer basket for the beans. 

When the water is boiling, pop the beans onto the steamer basket and cook for 2-3 minutes, lid on, or until the beans are cooked but still a bit crunchy. I steamed mine for 3 minutes. 

Use tongs to transfer the hot beans to the salad bowl and toss well to coat them with the dressing. Set aside to cool. 

Cover your serving plate with the slices of radish, reserving a few to decorate the top.

Add the dressed beans and onion then the reserved radish slices. I folded mine in half and then half again to make that pretty shape. 

Enjoy! 

It’s Sunday FunDay and today we are celebrating National Eat a Rainbow Day! Check out all the colorful dishes my friends are sharing below. Many thanks to our host, Wendy, from A Day in the Life on the Farm. 

• Cereal and Milk Pancakes from Palatable Pastime
• Colourful Fruit Salad Pudding  from Sneha’s Recipe
• Crispy Rainbow Egg Rolls from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• French Bean Watermelon Radish Salad from Food Lust People Love
• Moroccan Rainbow Carrot Salad from Mayuri’s Jikoni
• Naturally Dyed Rainbow Pasta  from Amy’s Cooking Adventures
• Rainbow Roasted Vegetables from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Tomato, Cucumber, and Red Onion Salad with Latholemono Dressing from Karen’s Kitchen Stories

 

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