This Radish Toast with Chive Blossom Butter is the best thing since sliced bread. Crisp radishes, edible flowers, creamy butter and fresh baguette!
As a child and teen I worked on a small family farm. I couldn’t bear the cold, even back then, but I made sure to bundle up to help plant the radishes. This was partly because I got to sell a portion of what I grew, but more so because I got to EAT some of what I grew.
On the days we pulled radishes, there was no need to make lunch. We sat right there at the edge of the field with baskets of crisp radishes, home-baked baguette, fresh butter, crunchy course salt… Sometimes the adults would drink wine and I would have sparkling grape juice, a wildly exotic beverage to 7-year-old me.
Those days are imprinted on my gardening gourmand soul. I still grow radishes and recreate that meal, time after time, except now I have the wine, too. I never thought I would taste anything better than the radish toast we made in that field. That is, until I started making it with my own recipe for Chive Blossom Butter. I have served this updated Radish Toast with afternoon tea and at fancy brunches, and it is always a standout.
To make this Radish Toast with Chive Blossom Butter, the first step is to make this Chive Blossom Butter recipe. The yield is approximately one pound of compound butter (32 tbsp), and I use around 2 tbsp per slice – your mileage may vary. You will need chive leaves and blossoms – if you don’t have your own flowers, bug your neighbors.
If you absolutely cannot find chive blossoms, just use chive leaves this year, but grow your own for next year. Even one little patch of chives can produce enough blossoms for a few recipes. And, nature willing, they get fuller every season. For instructions, read the Glamorosi Cooks article titled How to Grow, Harvest and Divide Chives.
You will definitely need fresh baguette; it doesn’t have to be homemade, it just has to be wonderful. Use the crispiest, most beautiful radishes you can find. I prefer them sliced thin: the radishes in my photo were cut by hand, but sometimes I use a mandolin to cut them thinner. Finish your toast with a lovely salt like fleur de sel or Maldon flakes.
Onion Chives bloom in the spring, but they have an equally delicious counterpart that blooms in the fall: Garlic Chives. In our region (Mid-Atlantic, zone 7b) Garlic Chives bloom from late-August through the end of September, sometimes a little longer. Garlic chive flowers look like a ball of tiny white stars. There is the expected difference in taste – onion vs garlic – but garlic chive flowers can be used in any of my onion chive flower recipes. You can see garlic chive flowers in action here on this Easy Flatbread Pizza recipe.
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If you like this Radish Toast with Chive Blossom Butter, you may like Honey-roasted Rhubarb Toast with Brie.
| Prep Time | 10 minutes |
| Cook Time | 0 minutes |
| Servings |
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- 1 baguette sliced
- 1/2 lb chive blossom butter
- 1 bunch radishes sliced thin
- 4 chive blossoms washed, dried and separated
- 4 tbsp chive leaves washed, dried, chopped
- fleur de sel sea salt
Ingredients
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- Spread each slice of bread with a generous amount of chive blossom butter.
- Add the desired amount of radishes to each slice of buttered bread, then finish it with chive blossom florets, chopped chive leaves, and a sprinkling of fleur de sel.
- Arrange on a platter and serve.
