It’s a great time of the year for crunchy peppery radishes and a great way to preserve them is by pickling. I love pickled vegetables and the scope and variety in which you can use them – give me a homemade pickled onion any day.

The best thing about apple cider vinegar is that you can pretty much pickle any vegetable in it and it also has great health benefits – it helps tame stomach issues, fights fatigue, prevents indigestion, clears nasal congestion and even speeds up metabolism to promote weight loss – so that’s why supermodels are downing shots of the stuff!
The only problem with eating shop brought pickled vegetables is that they tend to use sugar in the solution. This recipe uses agave (or you can use honey). These are gorgeous with smoked fish, falafels, on a burger, with BBQs or just straight from the jar! You can freely experiment with the vegetables – baby carrots and cucumbers are also amazing.

Ingredients

2 bunches of radishes thinly sliced
3-4 shallots thinly sliced
The Pickling solution
250ml apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon whole peppercorns
1 tablespoon sea salt
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
1 red chilli finely sliced
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons agave (or raw cane sugar)

Method

1. Wash and prepare the vegetables and place into a sterilised jar of your choice.
2. Put all of the pickling solution ingredients into a pan and bring to a boil.
3. Add the agave last and just stir it in with a spoon. Simmer for 2 minutes and you’re done.
4. Pour into the pickling jar covering all of the veggies and store somewhere cool and dark at room temperature for a few days. Once pickled to your taste, keep them in the fridge for up to 6 months. You can eat them after an hour – no need to wait!