Daikon*

I made Daikon Rice Soup tonight.  This was a second attempt.  Though the first try was successful, I made some slight modifications.  (I’m not done tinkering yet!  I never am!)

I used more mushrooms and daikon than called for. (The daikon I had were 2-3 times larger than those in the picture!!)  I wasn’t able to find seaweed for purchase anywhere, so that was left out.   I based it on chicken stock previously, but this time I tried vegetable.  Both were pretty tasty.  I omitted the extra salt since the soy and bouillon add enough of that.  My extra add-ins were chives, pepper, and some minced almonds.

The last time I made this, there were some hard daikon pieces that were nearly inedible, so I tried not adding the core portions of the daikon this time (the texture of the core seems different).

For next time?  Perhaps some sesame oil or seeds or some rice wine to the stock… Edit: I forgot about adding shiso/perilla.  I grew some in the garden this year and dried some to save.

Reposted recipe from link below:

Rice Stew with Daikon (Daikon Zosui)
Serves 5

2 ½ cups cooked short-grain rice*
¾ cup shiitake mushrooms*
1 ½ cups daikon (about a four-inch-long chunk), sliced as directed*
¼ cup carrots, sliced as directed*
½ cup Wakame, soaked five minutes in cold water to cover, then chopped into one-inch long pieces (discard soaking water)
5 cups fish stock (if unavailable, use chicken or vegetable stock)*
1 teaspoon salt*
2 ½ tablespoons soy sauce*

Peel the daikon and carrot, and slice into two-inch-long by one-half-inch wide ribbons that are no more than one-eighth-inch thick. Thinly slice the shiitake mushrooms also. Heat the stock in a soup pan with the daikon and carrot, and cook until the vegetables have softened, around 10 minutes. Add the cooked rice, mushrooms and wakame, and bring to the boil again, stirring occasionally. Stir in salt and soy sauce. Eat hot. Partners well with Daikon Pickles. (Note: Be careful not to cook the rice too long; otherwise, it will end up the unappetizing consistency of glue.)

http://www.moscowfood.coop/archive/daikon.html

*This Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons image is from the user Chris 73 and is freely available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Daikon.Japan.jpg under the creative commons cc-by-sa 2.5 license.