Daikon Radish
…….from Horsley Park – 40 minutes away.
These big beautiful white radishes good in Chinese turnip cake and make a fine addition to salad. They’ve a lovely peppery flavour, a little milder than fiery small pink radishes and reminiscent of the taste of watercress. But their texture is where they come into their own – they’ve crunch appeal.
What’s in Daikon?
They’re an exceptional source of Vitamin C (at 124% of the daily requirement) and contain useful amounts of Vitamin B6, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorous, dietary finer, Folate, Potassium and Copper.
Ideal for what?
It’s their natural sugars and their crunchy texture also make them an ideal pickle – many Japanese and Korean recipes involve pickling Daikon and the Koreans turn this vegetable into a traditional dining accompaniment – Daikon kimchi. Daikons feature in a
broad range of Asian cuisine.
The Farmer
Early morning picking – keeps it crisp
Daikon’s being harvested in great numbers in this Sydney winter and given it’s ability becoming a popular vegetable. Horsley Park grown by the Grima Family who use solid farming techniques of crop rotation, lots of good wholesome natural fertilizers and these have no sprays – chemical free.
How to use Daikon
Daikon salad,
Korean Daikon
Apple Daikon
Turnip (Daikon) Cake
Daikon Salad
Recipe Type: Salad
Cuisine: Asian
Author:
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 4
Imagine thin half moons of Daikon together with red oak lettuce (or baby spinach), and slim half moons of blood orange. Sounds like a holiday getaway.
Ingredients
- red oak lettuce or baby spinach leaves
- pre-cooked beetroot, sliced or
- raw beetroot, roughly grated
- a handful of walnuts
- French dressing
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- optional to add corn, grated carrot and garnish with strips of seaweed.
Instructions
- In a bowl place all ingredients and toss. Garnish.
Korean Daikon
Recipe Type: Salad
Cuisine: Asian
Author:
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 4
Julienne means to slice into matchstick sizes. For optimal crunchiness, cut the vegetables with the grain, or in the direction the fibres run usually up and down the length of the root. Julienne in that direction, not across the grain.
Ingredients
- 1 wombok, peel & Julienne
- 3 -4 carrot, peel & julienne
- 1 daikon, peel & julienne
- 3 tbs Sesame oil
- 1 tbs rice wine vinegar
- 1 – 2 tbs soy sauce
- Ginger 1cm, grated
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- Chilli for colour garnish
- 1 tsp sugar
- Shallots to garnish
- Toasted sesame (pop on tray in oven – watch as it will burn)
Instructions
- Place wombok, carrot and daikon julienned in a bowl. Then dress with sesame oil, and a little rice wine vinegar, and a tablespoon of good quality soy. Grate in fresh ginger and a clove or two of garlic, and add a teaspoon of sugar. If you’re feeding a mob, double or triple the dressing as necessary. Top with shallot greens and whites thinly sliced on an 45 degree angle and toasted sesame seeds. Chop a tiny bit of red chilli in for colour as well as flavour.
Apple Daikon
The lemon juice on the apples is to stop the apples browning as they oxidise.
Ingredients
- The Dressing:
- 3 tbs Sesame oil
- 1 tbs rice wine vinegar
- 1 – 2 tbs soy sauce
- Ginger 1cm, grated
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 tsp of sugar
- The add
- 1-2 crisp apples (grannies or sundowners ), peeled and julienned
- 1/2 a lemon’s juice
- 2-3 spring onions, sliced
Instructions
- To make dressing:
- In a bowl place the sesame oil, and a little rice wine vinegar, and a tablespoon of good quality soy. Grate in fresh ginger and a clove or two of garlic, and add a teaspoon of sugar.
- In another bowl add water then put the apples into water and add the lemon juice. Thinly slice the spring onions and combine with the dressing, drain apple and radish and spring onion. Combine with dressing. Serve.
Turnip Cake
Recipe Type: Savoury Cake
Cuisine: Asian
Author:
Serves: 4
It’s called Turnip but it stars Daikon and you might have seen or eaten it at Yum Cha. There are as many version of this Chinese classic as there are Chinese language dialects. Possibly more. This Chinese New Year traditional dish is the result of a two step process. First you steam the cake and then when it’s cool you slice into I cm pieces which you then fry. If the Daikon’s peppery and you’d like a milder flavour, salt and leave it. The salt will draw some of the pepperiness out and you’ll also have to squeeze out the moisture it draws. You can do this by putting the grated salted Daikon in a fine sieve over your sink and pressing out the water.
Ingredients
- 15g dried shrimp
- 2 tablespoon of good quality rice wine (or substitute with dry sherry).
- 100 g Chinese sausage (lap Cheong) sliced thinly.
- 100g of dried pork (lup yuk)
- or, 200 of mixed onion, carrot and celery for a vegetarian alternative
- 1kg daikon
- 300g rice flour
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- roasted sesame seeds
- freshly chopped corriander leaves
- finely sliced shallot white and greens
- Garnish: sesame seeds, spring onion, and coriander
- Notes on ingredients: Asian grocers will have the dried shrimp, Chinese sausage and dried pork this dish uses. If you wish to have a vegetarian you can be stir flying a mix of (150g) finely chopped onion, carrot and celery. Add to these 2 tablespoons of rice wine (or dry sherry) and
- the same of good quality soy sauce. Of course it’s not a flavour substitute for the meat – these are a tasty mix of vegetables that will add texture and piquancy to the dish) cold pressed coconut oil or vegetable oil.
Instructions
- Oil a 20 cm baking tin and trace the bottom with baking paper, cut it to size and place it in the tin. The tin has to fit inside a large bamboo steamer over a pot of boiling water.
- If you’re using the shrimp soak it for half and hour in the wine or sherry and then remove, squeeze drier and chop in thin slices. Finely cut the sausage and dry pork and sauté until fragrant and put aside in a large mixing bowl.
- If you’re vegetarian sauté your vegetables for two minutes and then add the soy and rice wine or sherry.
- Grate the daikon coarsely. This can be done in a food processor; use a grater insert with large holes. Add the sautéed vegetables or meat with the rice flour, salt and sugar to the large mixing bowl.
- Press this mix into the baking tin and cover with aluminium foil.
- Steam covered in the bamboo steamer for an hour and allow to come to room temperature.
- When cool, turn out of the and slice into 1cm pieces. Fry these in oil over a high heat. Don’t turn too frequently a single turn will help the pieces cohere.
- You can wait a day before frying this cake up.
- Invite friends over as it’s hard not to scoff the lot.