Ode to My Pantry: Daikonura!

Learning to feed yourself can be one of the most terrifying things. Am I about to give myself food poisoning? If I eat this too often will I end up with scurvy? How can I get the most nutritional bang for my buck? Why does this still taste like ass?

With Ode to My Pantry, learn to navigate a grocery store without having a meltdown in aisle three. Give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a queer to cook and stave off malnutrition for another semester.

OdetoDaikon

Happy Victoria Day and Daikonfest, the two holidays you hardly realized exist! Sure, Victoria Day is familiar to Canadians, but had you heard about the second one? Probably not, since my friends only started it a few years ago! But don’t worry, I’ll let you in on the fun.

How did it start? My friends always marked Move Out Day by lobbing a cabbage down the stairwell of their 17-storey dorm. One year while picking up their traditional vegetal projectile, they noticed their familiar orb bore the label Daikon. Rather than ask questions, those brave souls bought it, launched it, but were left pondering. What is this mystical daikon? Should we have bought it instead? So after our final goodbye to dorms, we decided to put the focus on the real daikon by launching a beer-fueled cookoff every May long weekend. Bragging rights and beer, what else do you need for a holiday?

As it turns out, labelling cabbage as daikon wasn’t too far off. They’re both members of the Brassica family, along with Brussels sprouts and kale. Whereas cabbage growers focus on the leaves, daikon breeders focus on the roots instead. The long white tubers are moist and crisp while relatively mild compared to their red-skinned radish cousins. That being said, daikon still has some of that familiar bitter pepperiness, owing its bite to Arilizotiozinath which is mostly concentrated in the skin.

Even though an albino carrot that packs a punch may not sound appealing, trust me, it’s a friend. And there’s a good possibility you’ve already taken a step to the daikon side.

Raw

In its raw form, daikon is juicy and crisp without the hard crunch of a carrot. Given the relatively loose structure, the texture is somewhat reminiscent of watermelon (although be sure to correct me if you have a better comparison). If you’re worried about it being too bitter for you, eat the top third of the root raw, and save the rest for cooking. A lot of the mustardy chemical is concentrated in the skin, so if you’re adverse to the radishy taste, strip ’em first.

Tastes like a delicious mistake!

Crispy daikon!

Add a few rounds to your salad, sandwich or any other dish you would have employed a little red bitter bomb. You can also julienne them with red onions and snow peas for a light summer slaw. It seems like some crafty juicers are sneaking it into their smoothies, but I have yet to see how flavourless it really is. If that all sounds too crazy to you, you’ve probably nibbled on some daikon when your sashimi arrived atop those “spicy slices of white stuff.”

Pickled

Daikon holds up well to pickling and Asian cultures have definitely embraced it. That disconcertingly neon yellow pickle Oshinko? Daikon. Those crunchy cubes that sometimes show up in your kimchi? Daikon. That orange and white slaw atop your bánh mì? Also daikon. You can make your own do chua using little more than sugar, salt and vinegar.

Via Sozo Sushi. Only $3.49 if you're in Pleasanton, CA.

Via Sozo Sushi. Only $3.49 if you’re in Pleasanton, CA.

Boiling

Gentle cooking reduces the radish pungency and allows a sweeter flavour to develop. When immersed for a long period, the root’s porous nature absorbs the cooking liquid and softens it up. While never becoming completely mushy, the pieces do fall apart, transforming your beautiful rounds into a handful of wedges. So if you plan on adding a few to your soup , hotpot or oden, be sure to fish them out when they lose their crunch.

Daikon, fishcakes and tofu via Open Kitchen Concept

Daikon, fishcakes and tofu via Open Kitchen Concept

Fried

If you properly drain your daikon, it’ll still get plenty of crunch. One of my favourite dimsum dishes consists of little more than steamed slabs of shredded daikon, rice flour and Chinese sausage. They’ll pan fry the cakes before serving, creating a textural counterpoint to the smooth interior.

You can also enjoy it at home. If you’re paying attention to your carbs, you might want to give daikon fries or hashbrowns a go. One of my favourite recipes to come out of Daikonfest was daikon latkes. Simply shred and bread and you’re well on your way to win!  As a warning, they tend to get soggy pretty quickly, so fry in small batches or leave them in a warm oven on a draining rack.

What’s your favourite way to eat daikon? Or better yet, do you have of any of your own secret holiday or end of term cook offs that I should crash?

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Kristen

Hailing from Vancouver, Kristen's still trying to figure out how to survive Montreal's Real Legitimate Canadian Winter. So far she's discovered that warm socks, giant toques and Tabby kittens all play a role in her survival. Her ultimate goal is to rank higher than KStew in the "Kristen + Autostraddle" Google Search competition.

Kristen has written 139 articles for us.

12 Comments

  1. Happy Victoria Day to you too! hahahaha yea, Daikon..what a great veggie…living with a good contingent of people from Korea, Japan and China has made all of us real foodies on the West Coast…you made me hungry now! Many Thanks!

  2. Whenever I think of daikon though, I think of the radish spirit from “Spirited Away”…

  3. I love this little ode to daikon! (And I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I seriously never put two & two together to realize that the dim sum “turnip cakes” are made of THAT kind of turnip/radish.)

    Here’s a recipe from my blog for Kimchi Kimbap (with that yellow pickled daikon called danmuji in Korean or takuan in Japanese) if you’re interested:

    http://spontaneoustomato.com/2013/02/21/kimchi-kimbap-and-easy-pickled-cucumber-banchan/

    • Not gonna lie, It took me a while to figure it out too. And that looks delicious! I will definitely follow your blog and try a few of those recipes out.

    • I also had no idea that was what I was eating and loving at dim sum, thanks for enlightening me!

  4. Delicious daikon
    So so tasty on the plate
    Want some? Oh, too late!

    I’m just wondering why I’ve never thought about making fries with it? Gonna have to get right on that.

  5. I totally thought that the cover photo was a picture of a really large joint made out of rice paper.

  6. I have only tried it in sushi and it is gross.

    That blunt in the picture is appealing, even if it is weirdly hairy. It looks delicious.

  7. I ate this in Japan and Korea in soups, under sashimi, as pickles, fried, and so on. But I am so intimidated by cooking with it at home!!
    One time my girlfriend (who cannot cook) impulsively bought one and sliced it up and stored in the fridge for some imaginary stir-fry she was planning on making in the future. She forgot about it, and OH MY GOD the smell. We had to evacuate the kitchen for a day and clean out the fridge to cleanse of its stench. I just can’t get past it. Kristen, you have given me the courage to try it again!

  8. I love Daikon but I’ve only used it grated in salads and in Kimchi. Thanks for the inspiration to try a few new things.

Comments are closed.