Daikon Dinner

Today, I pulled a few daikon raddishes from a community garden where I go:-) Daikon tastes like a bit of turnip, a bit bitter, but juicy.

This is our special dinner:

Tofu no mizore ae - fried tofu with grate Daikon soup

Use tip of tofu. Top part of daikon is sweet, but the tip is spicy. Some people like to use the tip (bottom) part fresh putting on chicken or beef steak with soy saucey sauce. Today, I used the part for making thick soup with tofu.

1. cut tofu, bite size

2. cover the tofu with corn starch, lightly

3. pour some oil in skillet, and fry the tofu all the sides(I fried just two sides, because there isn't enough patient;-), but it works okay). The point to make nice golden brown is not touch the tofu until the corn starch part stick to tofu, instead of the skillet.

4. in a small sauce pan, put some soy sauce, a bit of sugar, sake and mirin if you have, some water, grated ginger, and a piece of kombu(a kind of sea weed). bring to boil, gently, so the kombu makes nice flavor to the soup.

5. put the fried tofu in to the small pan, and put some green onion for garnish.

It makes you warm from inside.

Daikon Salad

Used not tip part of daikon.

1. cut daikon in strips

2. mix some mayonnaise to lightly cover the daikon

3. a bit of salt and pepper to it. I put some tuna for richness(scallops make good daikon salad too!), and edamame for color

Today's our Daikon Dinner

The left brown bowl one is stir fried Garden greens, cabbage, daikon leaf. Fried with sesame oil, salt and pepper. Garnish with sesame seeds. The greens are sweet.

Daikon contains diastase, it helps your stomach. Also My aunt told me to use for easing coughing and soar throat. Cut daikon really thin, pour some honey on to it, mix to cover the daikon with the honey, and wait a while. The daikon makes juice after a while, and drink the juice. You can get these results when you eat daikon fresh, because diastase isn't survive with heat.

Japanese eat daikon often as a pickle. Also cut thick and simmer cooked with dashi(sea weed or/and dried fish stock), fry like a steak with teriyaki style sauce is good too. I hope you enjoy this magical vegetable!