Daikon

Daïkon

What it is

By tonnage no vegetable is grown more in Japan than this one, and the Sakurajima cultivar has been weighed at over thirty kilos — a radish the size of a beach ball. The kitchen wants the opposite of size: a root simmered long enough that its opaque white turns translucent.

In the kitchen

Peel thick — the outer three millimetres stay fibrous whatever you do. Bevel the cut edge of every round and score a shallow cross in one face: the bevel keeps them from breaking up over the hour they take to go glassy, the cross lets the dashi in.

Goes with

Kombu Katsuobushi (dried bonito) Yuzu Miso Pork Dried shiitake (donko) Usukuchi shoyu Ginger

Same species

Bettarazuke Black radish Cai pu Dongchimi Fukujinzuke Iburigakko

Also used with

Japanese abalone Baek-kimchi Kobe beef Japanese amberjack (buri) Tiger pufferfish (torafugu) Fugu shirako

In season alongside

Kohlrabi Tatsoi Barbe de capucin Blue foot mushroom Brousse du Rove Buck’s-horn plantain

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