How to Make Decorative Radishes

Turn radishes into attractive flowers for a vegetable tray.

If you've been nominated to bring a vegetable tray for your next group get-together, take it to the next level. Instead of making piles of sliced and chopped vegetables around a bowl of dip, create a mixed bouquet of flowers made from various raw vegetables. One versatile ingredient for this floral arrangement is the radish. With its brilliant red outer shell and clean white interior, a radish can be the basis for some very attractive edible flowers.

Things You'll Need

• Sharp paring knife
• Cutting board
• Bowl
• Ice

Instructions

Radish Roses

1. Wash and rinse the radishes. Cut off the top and bottom of each radish with a sharp paring knife, leaving only a red ball.

2. Place a radish on a cutting board with the stem end facing down. Hold the radish with one hand and a sharp paring knife in the other. Make a small slice from the top of the radish toward the bottom, stopping about three-quarters of the way down the side of the radish. Curve the knife around the radish as you cut.

3. Turn the radish slightly, and make another slice down the outside of the radish, right next to the first one. Continue turning and slicing until you have a series of cuts all around the outside of the radish.

4. Make another set of cuts just below the first set, slicing the outside of each flower petal into another petal further out.

5. Place the cut radish into a bowl of ice water. The cold water causes the cuts to open up, creating petals on the outside of the radish flower.

6. Repeat the steps with the other radishes.

Radish Starflowers

1. Wash the radishes, and cut the top and bottom of each one, leaving only the red vegetable part.

2. Hold the knife with the tip touching the center of the radish. Angle the knife blade slightly so the cutting edge is to the left of the back of the blade. Make a small angled cut in the top of the radish.

3. Turn the radish slightly. Position the knife as before, with the point at the center of the radish. Angle the knife in the other direction, and make a small slice in the top of the radish. You now have a small V-shaped piece of radish cut out from the top.

4. Turn the radish again, and cut out another V shape. Continue cutting these pieces from the top of the radish until you have gone all the way around the top.

5. Make a slice in the outside of the radish, directly below one of the points created by the V cuts. Slice almost to the bottom of the radish, but not quite through. Rotate the radish, and make another slice on the outside below the next point, then again to slice underneath the rest of the points. Place the radish in a bowl of ice water to cause the outer slices to spread out like flower petals.

6. Repeat the steps with the other radishes.

References

• University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service; Versatile Vegetables; Sandra Bastin, Ph.D., et al.; November 2007