Käse-Rettich-Salat

Käse-Rettich-Salat belongs to the Bavarian and Alpine Brotzeit table, the cold board you set down with rye bread, butter, sausage, cheese, mustard, and a beer that knows its glass. It is picnic food, beer-garden food, and weeknight food when cooking would be too much and eating properly still matters.

Im Norden anders, im Süden anders. In the north, the cold table leans toward rye, herring, cucumber, and dairy; in Bavaria and the Allgäu, the white Radi, the long white radish, sits beside mountain cheese and gets cut fine enough to take salt and vinegar properly. Some cooks add onion, some caraway, some only chives. I keep the onion light and the caraway optional, because the radish and cheese are the argument.

The whole dish turns on one plain step: salt the cut Rettich first and let it weep. Raw white radish can bite like a cheap knife. Salt pulls out water, softens the burn, and gives the dressing somewhere to go. Skip that and you get watery salad with angry radish and tired cheese. Das braucht seine Zeit, but only twenty minutes.

Use a firm Bergkäse, not a rubbery sliced cheese from a packet. Nicht aus dem Glas for the dressing either: vinegar, oil, mustard, pepper, and the radish's own seasoning do the work. Toss it just before serving so the cheese stays distinct and the radish still has snap. Schön ist, was schmeckt.