Black Radish Omelet

When I'm eating alone and don't happen to have any leftovers to finish (admittedly, this happens rarely) I usually go for an omelet. It's fast, easy, you can vary the ingredients indefinitely, and it tastes great plonked on whatever bread you have around. This time, I used sourdough rye crispbread with nettles - bought, not made, although I may have to copy this some day.



The recipe comes from Fuchsia Dunlop's Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, which I got just this week - this was the first thing I tried, but certainly not the last! (Note to self: find fermented black beans somewhere.) Of course, the book called for daikon radish, which I didn't have, so instead I went for black radish which tastes very similar to me. (At least my dictionary tells me it's black radish, however there's not actually anything black about the ones you get here - I was going to say Finnish but, um, these were from Italy - and the small thin ones are fairly mild.)

Black Radish Omelet
adapted from Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, serves 2

about 150 g young black radish (one smallish radish)
½: tsp salt
3 sprigs spring onions
1 tbsp groundnut oil
3 eggs
salt & pepper
cilantro

Slice the radish thinly, then cut the slices into strips. Sprinkle with salt and let stand for half an hour. Whip the eggs lightly and season with salt and pepper. Slice the spring onions thinly and mix into the eggs.

Heat the oil in a medium-sized nonstick pan. Squeeze out as much liquid from the radishes as you can (I know I read somewhere about drying shredded potatoes in a ricer for hash, that'd probably go well here, too) and stir fry in the pan for a few minutes. Pour in the eggs and fry on medium-low for a few minutes. When the omelet's solidified and taken some color at the bottom, flip it over and fry on the other side for a minute or so. Sprinkle with more pepper and chopped cilantro.