Watermelon or Beauty Heart radish? At the farmer’s market on Saturday I  bought Watermelon radish. However, I first met this radish in China where the Chinese name was translated as Beauty Heart, so much prettier than Red Meat Radish which is the way it is sold by some seed companies. I love Beauty Heart, but I can easily live with Watermelon Radish.  When my Chinese colleagues first served me this radish in a pickled salad I insisted it must be a turnip and that we had run into a translating problem. I was wrong. This radish is a type of daikon radish (which doesn’t look like a cherry belle radish either), but all are members of the brassica family.

Beauty Heart or Watermelon radishes range in size from golf ball to baseball size and have a mild flavor. The Chinese do a lot of pickling and my favorites were pickled lotus root, garlic and, of course, Beauty Heart radish.

A simple pickling recipe:

eniugh thinly sliced beauty heart radish that can be covered by