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    Home » Recipes » Dinner

    Roasted Radish and Asparagus Tart with Kale Pesto

    Published: Jun 15, 2016 · Modified: Feb 8, 2020 by Kate Hackworthy · This post may contain affiliate links ·

    Jump to Recipe

    This brightly-coloured radish and asparagus tart is livened up with a punchy pumpkin seed and kale pesto. I've used shop-bought pastry to make it a quick mid-week dinner.

    A tart with radishes and asparagus on a wooden table.

    The radish is the most vibrant of brassicas. It’s perky pink skins hide a pleasantly peppery interior, ready to announce their quiet addition to any salad with a beautiful colour and sharp bite.

    We’re used the common round pink variety and the longer French Breakfast radishes, with their red skins fading to white bottoms, heralding the onset of spring. But I’m forever on the lookout for different varieties of these edible roots, such as the intriguing-looking black radishes and the larger daikon and mooli. The crunchy, crisp radishes have a long season, running from spring to autumn, and are great whether raw, cooked, roasted or pickled.

    A table with radishes, asparagus, kale, lemon and pumpkin seeds.

     

    The roots are lovely, but what about the rest of the plant? Hopefully not fodder for compost, or worse, landfill, rather radish leaves, beetroot greens and carrot tops are all perfectly edible. Whether in pesto, salad or cooked into a quiche, they should be thought of like all of the other greens that we buy.

    So, why are we paying for some greens and not others? Why are some routinely binned? What makes one set of greens of value while others are waste? As ever, thoughts of reducing food waste bring up endless questions.

    A tart with radishes and asparagus on a wooden table.

    I’ve made this kale pesto with pumpkin seeds instead of nuts, but if you can get your hands on a few large handfuls of radish leaves, then they would make a great substitution. It saddens me when supermarkets chop off those lovely edible radish greens. Like beets, I suppose the big shops remove them because wilting leaves will belie a vegetable’s true age. The longer the leaves are attached after harvesting, the faster they will wither their roots, sucking away the moisture to keep for themselves.

    Instead, these pink spheres are often shorn of their glorious crowns before stuffing them into plastic bags. I imagine great piles of beautiful, nourishing leaves swept up from the floor of radish packing plants, discarded.

    So I lament the lack of leaves. The barren supermarket veg, separated from their leafy bounty, lie sterile in cellophane, smelling of nothing, frozen in time in a ‘modified atmosphere’.

    Luckily, farmers markets and greengrocers appreciate the mud, the roots, the leaves. There’s no need for hairnets and plastic bags if the vegetables don’t have to travel far. Instead we can lift, touch, smell. In a perfect world, we would see unadulterated fruits and vegetables and smell their earthy scents. Some produce may get bruised or blemished, but in this world we don’t call this waste, we call it soup. This is the place where radishes have leaves, edible, beautiful leaves that can nourish us as pesto or salad.

    A tart with radishes and asparagus on a wooden table.

    Save our Scraps

    - Radishes are lovely eaten raw, dipped in butter with a sprinkling of sea salt, but you could also slice them thinly into a salad
    - Try roasting radishes in a variety of herbs, or lemon juice and oil.
    - Radish leaves can be cooked into a nourishing soup.
    - Radish leaves have a peppery flavour, so use them where you’d use rocket.
    -Separate the radishes from the leaves when you get them home to stop the roots from wilting, and use the leaves within a few days.
    - Crisp up ageing radishes by soaking them in cold water for a few hours.
    - The large mooli and daikon radishes can be grated into a tangy coleslaw or roasted in chunks.

    This brightly-coloured tart makes a quick mid-week dinner by making use of handy store-bought puff pastry. If your asparagus are large, slice them in half lengthways to ensure they cook through. The kale and pumpkin seed pesto can be blitzed together quickly, and any remaining can be used on another day mixed with pasta.

    A tart with radishes and asparagus on a wooden table.

    Roasted Radish and Asparagus Tart with Kale Pesto

    Kate Hackworthy | Veggie Desserts
    This brightly-coloured radish and asparagus tart is livened up with a punchy pumpkin seed and kale pesto. I've used shop-bought pastry to make it a quick mid-week dinner.
    5 from 2 votes
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    Prep Time 15 mins
    Cook Time 35 mins
    Total Time 50 mins
    Course Main Meals
    Cuisine American, British
    Servings 4
    Calories 271 kcal

    Ingredients
     

    For the roasted radishes

    • 1 cup (250g) radishes
    • 1 tablespoon olive oil
    • 1 teaspoon maple syrup
    • Pinch of salt and pepper

    For the tart

    • 13 0z 375g store-bought puff pastry sheet thawed if frozen (check vegan if required)
    • Milk or non dairy milk
    • 1 bunch of asparagus

    Kale and Pumpkin Seed Pesto

    • 1 cup (150g) kale leaves, roughly chopped
    • ½ cup (75g) pumpkin seeds
    • 1-2 cloves of garlic
    • Juice of half a lemon
    • Pinch of salt
    • ⅓ cup (80ml) extra virgin olive oil

    Instructions
     

    • Heat the oven to 450F / 230C
    • Trim the radishes and slice them in half. Add them to a roasting tray and toss with the oil, syrup, salt and pepper, then roast for 15 minutes.
    • Meanwhile, prepare the pesto: lightly toast the pumpkin seeds in a dry frying pan over a med-high heat until just starting to brown. Add them, along with all of the other pesto ingredients except the oil, to a food processor or blender and blitz until coarse, scraping down the sides as necessary. With the motor running, slowly drizzle in the olive oil and process to create a pesto.
    • Reduce the oven to 400F / 200C.
    • Spread the pastry out onto a baking sheet, prick the base with a fork well, to stop the middle rising while it cooks, then cook for 15 minutes.
    • Remove the part-cooked pastry from the oven and brush the edges of the pastry with the milk. Spread the pastry with the kale pesto (you will have some left over), then top with the roasted radishes and the asparagus spears in rows. Cook for 10-15 minutes or until the edges are golden.

    Nutrition

    Calories: 271kcalCarbohydrates: 6gProtein: 4gFat: 27gSaturated Fat: 4gSodium: 27mgPotassium: 215mgFiber: 1gSugar: 2gVitamin A: 1673IUVitamin C: 25mgCalcium: 36mgIron: 1mg

    The nutritional information provided is approximate and can vary depending on several factors, so is not guaranteed to be accurate. Please see a registered dietician for special diet advice.

    Tried this recipe?Mention @kateveggiedesserts or tag #veggiedesserts! I love seeing your recreations.

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    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Annie

      April 16, 2018 at 1:31 pm

      5 stars
      This is so pretty! It was so easy and we Loved the flavours on this gorgeous tart!

      Reply
    2. Gingey Bites

      June 17, 2016 at 2:56 pm

      I can honestly say I've never seen radish leaves, which just proves your point right and such a shame that we get everything so clean and 'perfect' wrapped in plastic in the supermarkets.

      I've also never had roasted radish, interested to try it!

      Reply
    3. Mackenzie

      June 16, 2016 at 2:55 pm

      Not only are the photos for this tart absolutely enticing, but I love the idea of using the radish tops! This gives me something fun to do the next time I pick some up from the farmer's market!

      Reply
    4. Sara | Belly Rumbles (@bellyrumbles)

      June 16, 2016 at 2:16 pm

      Gorgeous tart. Now I would have never thought of adding radishes, very cool.

      Reply
    5. Lisa |Garlic + Zest

      June 16, 2016 at 12:37 pm

      Such a lovely tart. I concur with you about supermarkets -- and the trimming of the greens. I try to buy most of my produce from farmer's markets so that I can get all of the vegetable!

      Reply
    6. Madeleine Morrow

      June 16, 2016 at 11:07 am

      This made me smile - it just looks so cheeky. I hardly ever buy radish but this will get some in my shopping basket. A lovely creative dish.

      Reply
    7. Kate | The Veg Space

      June 16, 2016 at 11:06 am

      What a stunning tart - a great centrepiece for a summery al fresco lunch! I didn't know you could eat radish leaves so thanks for the tip - now to get hold of some! (or grow my own!). Love kale pesto too - haven't tried making it with pumpkin seeds but sounds delicious and super-healthy!

      Reply
    8. Monica Shaw

      June 16, 2016 at 11:04 am

      WOW! Never heard of roasting radishes before but it sounds so tasty with the honey. And I'm a sucker for anything and all things KALE. Loads of inspiration here!

      Reply
    9. shelby

      June 16, 2016 at 10:47 am

      This is a gorgeous meal! I only recently tried cooked radish (on the grill) and was quite surprised that I liked them that way!

      Reply
    10. Sarah Ebner

      June 16, 2016 at 9:36 am

      This looks absolutely beautiful - and delicious. I cook a lot of vegetarian food, but have never roasted radishes. You've inspired me now!

      Reply
    11. Stephanie Merry

      June 16, 2016 at 9:19 am

      What a gorgeous looking tart! I would never have thought to add this combination together but it looks amazing!

      Reply

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    Popular recipes

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