The World's Most Beautiful Carpaccio

I will never understand how the farmers at the Yuno's Farm stand at the Union Square Greenmarket manage to make their just-picked veggies look like they've been food styled. I know I should not be deterred by craggy, misshaped produce (and I'm not), but sometimes I just want to stand and stare at the beautiful edibles from Yuno's.

So today I went by, and they had watermelon radishes, which look like white-skinned beets on the outside, but are a glorious candy-pink on the inside. Their taste is mild, not sharp, a little like daikon.

Although watermelon radishes can be steamed or added to a stir-fry just like any other radish, you can make the most of their good looks in a radish carpaccio. So, People Magazine-like, I present you with the world's most beautiful (and easy) carpaccio.

For this carpaccio (above), I simply took one large watermelon radish and sliced it thinly on my mandoline, but you could just use a knife to slice it, if you don't have a mandoline. I arranged the slices on a plate, drizzled it with about 3 tablespoons of rice vinegar and 2 tablespoons of toasted sesame oil. Then I sprinkled on the Japanese chile powder called ichimi togarashi (if you don't have this, use whatever mild chile powder is on hand). A shower of sesame seeds, and a generous sprinkling of salt, and you're done.