daikon rice

Since I bought a whole daikon, I was interested in cooking it with rice.

I found this recipe on Shirogohan and made it twice....

Makes 2 servings.

1 cup rice, washed

1 piece of aburaage (about 2-inch by 2-inch)

2 round pieces of daikon (about 1/2 inch thick), peeled and cut into cubes.

150 milliliters dashi (stock)

1 tablespoon shoyu (soy sauce)

1 tablespoon mirin (sweet rice wine)

1 okra, minced

Pour hot water over the aburaage to remove the oil, cut into strips then into squares.

Add the aburaage and daikon to the rice then add the dashi, shoyu and mirin.

Cook the rice on "takikomi" mode, hopefully your rice cooker has this.

After rice is cooked, mix in minced okra and serve.

NOTES: the original recipe has you use the daikon greens but since the daikon I bought did not have any, I added some okra, feel free to add green onions.

We enjoyed this, the daikon gets really soft and soaks up the dashi.

I will make this again.

daikon gyoza

A great way to cut carbs... use daikon as gyoza wrappers!

I saw this idea online and had to try.

Adapted from the internet : 2 servings

100 grams daikon, peeled and cut thinly in rounds (about 12 slices)

1/2 teaspoon salt

100 grams minced chicken

5 leaves shiso, chiffonade then minc

1 teaspoon sesame oil

kim chee 

Mix minced chicken with shiso and set aside

After peeling and cutting daikon into thin rounds, massage daikon with salt and let sit for 10 minutes.

After the 10 minutes, rinse and gently dry each slice with paper towel.

Scoop chicken mixture onto each daikon slice and gently fold in half. (the thin slice gets “flexible” after salting) 

Unlike gyoza you do not “seal” these, they should look like "tacos".

Heat oil in pan and place each gyoza onto the pan.

Cook for about 4 minutes

Flip over and cover to steam and cook through 

Cook for about 4 more minutes.

Serve with kim chee

NOTES: on the original recipe the amount of daikon didn’t match the amount of minced meat (chicken), so I adjusted to what I wrote above.

The original recipe adds oyster sauce and chives to minced pork, but I instead used shiso & minced chicken

I also didn’t season the minced meat because we were eating the gyoza with kim chee.

I ended up cutting the daikon by hand because the mandoline I do have was slicing the daikon too thin.

Hopefully I can find an inexpensive adjustable mandoline to get my slices evenly thin.

Also depending on the size of your daikon, the diameter may or may not be able to fit on a mandoline.

Will definitely try this again.

p.s. today is technically a holiday (Coming of Age Day) but Satoshi is off to work and I am laying low....have a good week!

yuzu & daikon

Apparently this year root and leafy veggies are plentiful and super cheap.

I was able to get a nice sized daikon and yuzu for 98 yen each!

(BUT, I was saddened to see on the news that the farmers here are having to throw out tons of produce! apparently due to the lack of food operators not operating at full speed..um can't the produce be frozen or given away to countries that don't have enough food?!)

Anyway, with part of the daikon I made some yuzu daikon pickles.

Found on the internet: 2 servings

500 grams daikon, peeled and sliced into sticks

1 yuzu, juiced and thinly slice the peel

1 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons sugar 

2 tablespoons vinegar

some dried chili pepper

In a bowl put the daikon and salt and massage, leave for 5 minutes.

After the 5 minutes, squeeze out the water from the daikon.

In a ziploc bag, put the daikon, yuzu peel, sugar, vinegar and chili.

Massage gently then store in refrige.

Enjoy after a couple of hours.

NOTES: The whole recipe was for 2 servings, and since I didn’t know how it would taste I only made half the recipe.

It was so easy and tasty, I’d definitely make this again.

I froze the rest of the yuzu peel to bake with and or to add to osuimono (clear soup).

Saturday night, with about 1/3 of the daikon, I peeled and grated it to put into mizore nabe.

Grated daikon is called oroshi but it is also called mizore because it looks like sleet.

After the ingredients of the nabe (hot pot) were cooked I added the grated daikon and waited for for the liquid to come up to a boil before serving.

With the leftover yuzu juice, I made some ponzu (1 tablespoon of yuzu juice & 1 teaspoon shoyu per person) for us to use while eating our nabe.

I still have the top part of the daikon which I plan to use in the coming days.

mizore nabe

Recently we tried mizore nabe.

Mizore in Japanese means sleet.

Grating the daikon makes it look like "sleet".

I peeled then grated a 8-inch long piece of daikon, then set it aside.

Then, I filled up our clay pot with all sorts of veggies (chinese cabbage, chrysanthemum greens, carrots, maitake mushrooms) and a little pork.

Added 4 cups of dashi and brought everything to a boil then down to a simmer.

After cooking everything, I turned off the heat, squeezed out the water from the grated daikon and added it to the nabe, heating it in the clay pot for like a minute or two.

We ate this with ponzu (citrus soy sauce) and a little shichimi (Japanese 7-spice) but you can eat it with your favorite condiment.

I'm glad we tried this, it was a nice way to warm up and also use up some daikon.

tataki gobo & namasu

I mentioned that I made namasu and tataki gobo for our osechi...these two are really easy to make.

Tataki Gobo adapted from Orange Page
1 "stick" gobo (burdock root) about 8-inches long, scrubbed and cut into half then into fourths.
water

1/4 cup dashi

A: 2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 tablespoon mirin
1/2 tablespoon shoyu

B: 1/2 tablespoon sugar
1/2 tablespoon shoyu
1/2 tablespoon sake
1/2 tablespoon vinegar

2 tablespoons ground sesame seeds

In a pot, put the gobo and water and when the water boils, turn down the heat to medium and cook for 10 minutes.
Take the gobo out then using a rolling pin (or something heavy), "roll" over the cooked gobo a couple of times (to break down the fibers).
Then put the gobo, dashi, and ingredients for "A" into a pot and cook on medium until the liquid evaporates.
After the liquid evaporates, coat the cooked gobo with "B" and the sesame seeds.

Namasu
4 inches wide daikon
4 inches long carrot
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon vinegar

Peel and shred daikon
Peel and shred carrot
Add 1/2 teaspoon salt and wait for 3 minutes.
After 3 minutes, squeeze out water from daikon and carrot
Put daikon and carrot into sugar vinegar mixture.

NOTES: after making this, I felt the daikon and carrot should be marinated separately then put together before serving to keep the white and orange colors separate.

If you try these, let me know what you think.

sakura daikon

I wanted to recreate the sakura daikon we tried from Marukoshi.

I still can't understand why companies insist on using artificial sweeteners...

The recipe I found online seemed like it would be a little too sweet, so I adapted it...

5 inch long daikon, peeled & cubed
2 tablespoons vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
3 or 4 salted sakura (do not rinse off the salt), chopped

Put everything in an airtight jar and let soak for a couple of hours.
Enjoy!

NOTES: not an overpowering sakura flavor and not too salty nor too sweet. I'm making this again!

roca's kiriboshi daikon mustard salad

My impression of kiriboshi daikon isn't a very good one. Most times when you get it at the sozai-ya (pre-made food shop) or when it is in a bento, the daikon is limp, not a very nice texture.

On top of that, the color is brown because it is simmered in shoyu (soy sauce) and other ingredients.

So, when I spotted this colorful salad in Roca's book, I had to try it.

I'd never cooked with kiriboshi daikon, so using this was a first for me.

Kiriboshi daikon is daikon that is sliced and then dried. These days a lot of housewives are cutting and drying their own veggies. By drying them, the veggies are supposed to retain a lot of their nutrients as well as a lot of their flavor.

I also think that by drying them, you can keep them in your pantry for off-season cooking.

When I opened the package of kiriboshi daikon, the aroma of daikon was really strong. The texture looked like the paper that gets stuck in the shredder...

Kiriboshi Daikon Mustard Salad from "Roca no Teishoku" : serves 2

20 grams kiriboshi daikon
hot water
2 teaspoons shoyu (soy sauce)
1.5 tablespoons vinegar
25 grams onion (about 1/8 of an onion)
15 grams red cabbage (about 1 leaf)
20 grams carrot (about 3 centimeters)
30 grams Japanese cucumber (about 1/3 of a cucumber)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon mayonnaise or your favorite oil
grainy mustard


Rinse the kiriboshi daikon and then pour enough hot water over it to cover it and let it rehydrate.
Let it sit for at least 20 minutes.
While you are waiting for the daikon to rehydrate, get the rest of the salad ready.

Thinly slice the onion, cabbage and cucumber.
Julienne the carrot.
In a container, put the onion, cabbage, cucumber and carrot.
Sprinkle the salt, mix with your hands and let sit.

After 20 minutes, drain the water from the daikon and squeeze gently (you don't want it totally dry).
While the daikon is still warm, add the shoyu and vinegar, mix and let cool.
After about 30 minutes to an hour, the daikon should be cooled and the other veggies will have released some of their water.
Drain the water from the veggies.

Add the daikon with its "sauce" to the veggies.
Add a little grainy mustard, I used about 1/2 teaspoon, and the mayo.
Mix well and then chill.

NOTES: The daikon is so crunchy! In fact, everything in this salad is. We enjoyed this several times already. I am definitely making this again!

dinner

Thursday night's dinner...started off with making "furikake", a topping for rice.

This was daikon greens and jakko (dried small anchovy).

In a frying pan, heat about 1/2 tablespoon of sesame oil.

Add a handful of jakko and toss, then add chopped daikon greens and toss.

At the end I added a little dash of shoyu (soy sauce).

NOTES: I only had about 2 handful of chopped daikon greens and a handful of jakko, if you use more of either, I would suggest adjusting the shoyu and sesame oil.

For our main dish, daikon wrapped with pork.

This recipe was in Orange Page's "Fuyu ni Oishii kondate", which I adapted.

Serves: 2

200 grams of pork belly, thinly sliced
1 inch thick piece of daikon, cut into thin sticks

Sauce:
nub of ginger, grated
1/2 tablespoon roasted sesame seeds
1/2 tablespoon sake (rice wine)
1/2 tablespoon shoyu (soy sauce)
2 teaspoons mirin (sweet rice wine)
1 teaspoon sesame oil

green onion, chopped
some canola oil to cook in

Put sauce together and set aside.
Wrap daikon pieces with pork.
Heat canola oil and cook pork pieces well.
Add sauce and let liquid evaporate a little.
Before serving top with green onions.

Top your rice with the daikon furikake, about 1 tablespoon.

Serve with some miso soup.

Dinner is served, a lot of green and a good way to use all of the daikon.

NOTES: the recipe for the main dish actually called for pork loin, but of course I didn't read the recipe well and when I went to the market I just got something that was thin.

I think if I had actually bought pork loin, the wrapping of the daikon wouldn't have been so thick. I should have also cut the daikon more thin and matchstick-like, so that it could cook faster.

I think this would be nice with other veggies inside also like carrot and/or green beans.

This was rather quick and easy. Would definitely make this again.

p.s. another adaptation can be found here.

hawaii volunteers

Yesterday I went to help my mom and some people from her church make tsukemono.

Almost every trip home, I go to help at least once. This usually involves lots of lifting and peeling pounds and pounds of daikon for takuan and kogen (two types of tsukemono (Japanese pickles)). Sometimes it involves other veggies when they are making other types.

Yesterday they were making takuan and kogen...150 pounds of daikon for each type.

With about 20 people we were done in no time. It was interesting listening to the groups of people chatter on about topics like "what they are growing in their garden" to "Michael Jackson".

These pickles will be sold at their upcoming Bon Dance in August.

The bon dance which started in Japan is like a party for you to welcome back your ancestors during the O-bon season in August. There is usually a big taiko (drum), a singer and some other Japanese instruments like a shamisen (looks like a 3 string guitar of sorts) that play various Japanese songs perched on a high stage, while the participants (including you) dance around the high stage.

If I am not mistaken, dancing around the high stage is how you welcome your ancestors back. I do remember while growing up that we had to go at least one time around to get some shave ice. (bribery?? maybe.)

The bon dances in Hawaii have food booths and sometimes games, it may look kind of like a county fair or what we call carnivals. While Japan does not have many bon dances these days, Hawaii seems to preserve what culture our immigrant ancestors brought with them hundreds of years ago.

Satoshi and I have volunteered in the andagi (okinawan donuts) booth at my church and have not forgotten the overwhelming heat and hard work that goes into producing these tasty treats.

I think the Bon Dance season has started in Hawaii, if you have some time you should check it out, the local newspapers usually lists all the bon dance dates and times, it is a great way to get some good local food and welcome your ancestors back.

nose

Last Thursday, I met up with my friend Kazumi and she took me up to Nose (pronounced no-say). This area has a lot of farms, I think there is even a dairy.

We stopped at a roadside market and picked up some veggies. Everything was so cheap! I picked up some daikon, 2 for 60 yen (about US$.60) with the tops. Whenever you buy daikon in the supermarkets they cut off the tops! so you almost never get to cook with them, which is sad because the tops have lots of nutrients in them.

I also bought a package of spinach. There were about 8 small bunches in this package and only 105 yen (about US$1.05), a container of rakkyo (pickled scallions) for 600 yen (about US$6), this was the most expensive thing I bought but how can you go wrong with homemade?

We heard that if we had come earlier there would have been a better selection, still, we were happy with our purchases.

After buying our produce, we stopped into their restaurant for lunch. Their food is all homemade. We had their tofu hamburger set 840 yen (about US$8.40), this came with lots of different veggie dishes and the hamburger which had tofu mixed in. It also came with kodaimai (purple/reddish rice) which was also delicious.

After our filling lunch, we went to check out a little cafe nearby called Yamaboshi. This cafe just opened in April and Kazumi knew the architect who built it.

They have a light lunch menu and a dessert menu. We tried their dessert plate and we were so stuffed afterwards! The plate comes with a slice of chiffon cake, your choice of the dessert of the day and your choice of the gelatin dessert. All that with drink only 800 yen (about US$8), definitely worth the price (sorry no photo!).

The coasters were cute too, made to look like those origami aloha shirts.

On the top floor of the cafe is a little quilting school.

It was a great little cafe.

With the veggies I bought from the roadside market, I made takuan with the daikon. The recipe I used needed to be doctored, so I won't share it with you. Let's just say until I doctored it, it was super sour!

With the tops of the daikon, I blanched them and chopped them up. With half of the tops, I added 1 can tuna (drained), 1 tablespoon yogurt (placed on cloth for 20 minutes to get out water), 1 teaspoon mayo. Mix well and top with sesame seeds.

The spinach, I wilted and served with ponzu (citrus soy sauce).

Here was our dinner on Sunday...kim chee with mushrooms, takuan, rakkyo, kodaimai, spinach with ponzu, green beans with lemon and dill & daikon leaves with tuna.

These are the times I wish we had a car, so I can go veggie shopping here. Thanks for a great day Kazumi!

Cafe Yamaboshi
45-86 Morigami
Nosecho, Toyono-gun
Osaka
Phone: 072.734.2227
Open 11:00-17:00
Closed Mondays & Tuesdays

p.s. with the other half of the daikon tops, a made a kind of furikake...heat 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, add 50 grams of chirimen jakko (dried young sardines), toss. Add the blanched and chopped daikon tops, toss. Then lastly add 1 teaspoon of sesame seeds. After everything is coated in the oil. Take off the heat and serve over rice.

easy dinner

It has been really humid the past couple of days. Yesterday afternoon it poured with thunder and this morning we awoke to cloudy skies and more humidity, not very inspiring cooking weather.

For dinner, I decided to make something easy.... Donburi (dish in a deep bowl). I found a relatively easy recipe in a cookbook I have been using a lot lately, "Orange Page's Natsu ni oishii kondate"

Oroshinose-yakinikudon (grilled marinated meat bowl with grated daikon on top) Serves 2
2 bowls of cooked rice (about 400g)
200g thinly slice beef sirloin
3 cm daikon (long white radish)
3 leaves of shiso (perilla)
shiroi irigoma (white sesame seeds)

1/2 tablespoon sesame seed oil
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 tablespoon sake (rice wine)
ichimitogarashi (ground red chili pepper) to taste

Sauce:
1/2 tablespoon shoyu (soy sauce)
1/2 tablespoon mirin (sweet rice wine)
1/2 tablespoon oyster sauce

Prep: Cut meat into bite sized pieces. Peel daikon and grate. Wash grated daikon and drain well. Mince shiso.

Method: In a frying pan, put the sesame oil and heat on high. Place beef flatly and sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides. Cook in pan until beef changes color then add sake and ingredients for the sauce. Let the sauce coat the beef well and take out of the pan.

Plating: In a donburi bowl (deep bowl), put the cooked rice and place the cooked beef on top. Add the grated daikon and shiso on top of the beef. Sprinkle some sesame seeds and some ground chili pepper.

NOTES: This dish was delicious. The sauce didn't overpower the beef and went well with the cool grated daikon.

Another thing that I did was "toss together" a little salad. This recipe was also from the same book on the same page as the recipe above.

Celery no kim chee ae (Celery dressed with kim chee) Serves 2
1 stalk of celery
80g kim chee
1 teaspoon mirin (sweet rice wine)
1/2 teaspoon of sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon of shoyu (soy sauce)

Prep: Take the leaves off the stalk and break the leaves with your hands into easy to eat pieces. Slice the stalk of celery to 2mm (thinly). Slice the kim chee to 2-3 cm pieces.

Method: In a bowl add the mirin, sesame oil and shoyu, mix. Add in celery and kim chee.

NOTES: The leaves of the celery were quite bitter, but I liked the crunch of the celery stalk and kim chee.

Enjoy!

irifune

The rain has been coming down since the early morning, last night I was awoken by the awful humidity. It felt like someone turned the oven on and stuck us in there....blah!

Since Satoshi is off today, we decided to go to Irifune, a cute little soba (buckwheat noodle) shop in our shopping arcade. I've written about this shop before, here.

Summertime brings the cold version of noodles. The soup or broth that the noodles are served in are icy cold. And although the rain was coming down, I wanted to eat the shop's kisetsu gentei (season limited) item, ume oroshi soba. (I've heard that most people in Osaka are weak for anything that is limited editioned or maybe it was the Japanese in general.)

Ume is pickled plum (the big red thing on top), it is soft and very sour, makes every part of your mouth pucker. Oroshi is finely grated daikon (long white radish), depending on what part of the daikon you use to grate can depend on the spiciness of the oroshi. If you use the bottom half it is more spicy than the top, this is because the top half gets all the love from the sun. Most shops use the bottom portion of the daikon to get their oroshi really spicy.

Hopefully the rain will stop so that we can get out and about tomorrow.

day after christmas

It is the day after Christmas, are you at the malls? It is just another day here in Japan, in fact, a lot of people are trying to get ready to welcome the New Year--I'll post about that as we get closer to the day.

A while back, I bought a chocolate cookbook, which I posted about here. Remember I also received some dried figs? Well, since I had a bottle of red wine open, I was finally able to try this recipe.

Ganache Figue makes about 16 pieces
5 dried figs
3/4 cup red wine
1/2 cinnamon stick
3 whole black peppers
1 whole clove
125g sweet chocolate
100ml cream
cocoa powder

1. In a pot, put the wine, cinnamon, pepper & clove and bring to a boil. When it comes to a boil, turn down to simmer for 5 minutes.
2. Add the dried figs and let come to a light boil. Turn off heat and put lid on, leave contents in pot overnight.
3. The next day, take the figs out and cut into 1 cm pieces. Save the mulled wine.
4. Cut the chocolate into small pieces and put into a bowl.
5. In a pot, heat the cream on medium heat, before it comes to a boil, turn off the heat. Add the cream to the chocolate and mix with a whisk.
6. When the chocolate and cream is combined, add the figs and 3 tablespoons of the mulled wine. Let cool.
7. After cool, spoon out into 16 balls and place onto a parchment sheet.
8. Cool in refrig for 20 to 30 minutes. Using your hands re-mold it to look like a fig and cover in cocoa powder. From the mulled wine, take the cinnamon stick and cut slivers to be used as the stem of the fig.

NOTES: I ended up with about 20 pieces--I cut the figs into 4 pieces. I didn't add the 3 tablespoons of the wine, I only added 1 because I don't care too much for liquor chocolates. I also didn't read the recipe well and I cooled the chocolate in the refrig and ended up with quite a hard mess. I also didn't use the cinnamon stick slivers at the end. The figs were well soaked and it didn't taste too winey. And because I used dark chocolate, instead of sweet chocolate, it matched well with the wine taste.

The other day, I also received daikon (long white turnip) from a friend, so I tried a recipe for Japanese pickles called takuan. I got the recipe from my mom's church's cookbook. This was really easy to make.

Here's the recipe from "Wisteria Delights"
Takuwan
3 T. salt
3/4 c. Japanese vinegar (rice vinegar)
1-1/2 c. sugar
1/4 tsp yellow food coloring
3 or 4 medium white turnips

Boil the salt, vinegar and sugar until sugar is melted.
Turn off heat, then add food coloring.
Set aside until cool.
Slice turnips, place in a bowl and pour sauce over them.
Leave in bowl, turning often with a wooden spoon.
Next day, put into jars with sauce then refrigerate.
If you like it a little hot, you may add chili peppers to your taste.

NOTES: I didn't add the food coloring.

Hope you are having a great week!

trying to beat the heat (part 3)

We've been having rain and humidity...ugh! But have been fortunate not to have had the flooding and landslides as Kyushu did over the weekend.

I've been trying at all costs to find ways to avoid standing near the stove. Here's what I've come up with...


An instant okayu (gruel) made with 10 different grains made by DHC. This company is also in the U.S. and has a wonderful skin care line. It is kind of like oatmeal and appears a lot as a breakfast item--except in Japan, we top okayu with nori, tsukemono (pickled veggies) and pair it with grilled fish. Just stick this bag into a pot of boiling water for 5 minutes and you have part of your meal! Okay, it is instant, but at least you only need to stay near the stove for 5 minutes...

Furofuki daikon (well boiled turnip, is the definition in my book, but I think it has more imagery of bathing since the Chinese characters for this dish are for bath--furo). This dish is really easy to make.

Slice your turnip into 4 cm. slices and make a cross at the top (be sure not to go all the way through). This is to let the stock soak through and it makes it easy to eat with chopsticks.

Next, get some kombu (kelp) and fish shavings, like bonito and soak in boiling water for about 30 minutes until your stock is formed. Add your sliced turnip. Add 1 tsp. shoyu (soy sauce) and 1 tsp. mirin (sweet rice wine) and boil everything until soft (about an hour).

The next step is the only one which you need to stand near the stove (10-15 minutes tops!)....The sauce on the top is a miso (soy bean paste) base. Put 5 tbsp. of miso, 3 tbsp. of sugar, 2 tbsp. of sake (rice wine) and 2 tbsp. of mirin (sweet rice wine) into a small pot or pan and stir on low heat, with a wooden spoon until smooth--be sure not to burn the sauce!

Store leftover turnip separately from the miso sauce.

Enjoy!