Week 3 - Daikon, winter's white treasure

Daikon is a large white radish, often 12 inches or more long. It has a mild radish flavor. It is harvested in fall and keeps well in cool places or refrigeration for a long time. It is also known as the "vegetable crowbar" for the power that it has to break up hard soils and penetrate into them many inches, pulling up minerals and nutrients that other annuals can't reach.

What can you do with daikon?

* cut up into small cubes and put into salads, serving radish duties
* cut or slice and put into stir fries; daikon complement nearly any Asian stir-fry vegetable dish
* peel and grate finely, sprinkling with a little salt and a few drops of soy sauce, and serve as a relish; goes well with Asian and non-Asian types of meals

Shredded Napa Salad

1 ounce dried shiitake mushrooms (about five) or use five fresh shiitakes if you have them
1/2 pound shredded Napa cabbage
2 scallions, trimmed and sliced
2 ounces peeled, sliced and quartered daikon radish

Pour boiling water over the shiitakes, let soak 20 minutes, remove hard stems and slice (for fresh shiitakes, just wipe off and slice). Toss all the vegetables well. Mix with dressing and serve. You can use a commercial Asian-type dressing to save time, or make your own: 2 tbs vinegar, 1/8 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp dry mustard, 2 tbs soy sauce (tamari), 1/8 teaspoon toasted sesame oil, 1/4 cup olive oil. Shake all together well. Stir in enough to moisten the salad, or serve on the side.

Napa and Daikon are good buddies, also forming the basis for the Korean kim chee. You can make kim chee at home by lactofermentation. It is really pretty easy. You will need a 1/2 gallon jar (such as a canning jar) with a screw-on lid.

Napa Kim Chee

1 pound Napa cabbage, cut in quarters lengthwise, then crosswise into 1 to 2" pieces
1 pound daikon radish, peeled and sliced very thin
2 tablespoons peeled and minced garlic
2 tablespoons peeled and minced ginger
6 scallions, trimmed and sliced
1 tablespoon flavorful chile powder
3 tablespoons sea salt or pickling salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar

Mix 6 cups of water with 2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons salt, stir until salt dissolves. Plunk the cabbage and radish down in the water (you'll need a large bowl). Make sure it all gets wet. Push it under a few more times during the next 8-12 hours.

In another bowl, put the ginger, garlic, scallions, chile powder, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon sugar. Pull the vegetables out of the first bowl, reserving the water, and put into the second. Stir well, so that the seasonings are well distributed. Then pack the flavored vegetables into your half-gallon jar, pushing down some to eliminate air, but not absolutely squishing. This amount should just about fill up a half-gallon jar. Pour all the liquid from the second bowl (the one with the seasonings) into the jar, and top it up with leftover brine from the first bowl. Now, screw on the lid loosely, put the jar in a saucer, and put it on the back of your kitchen counter.

If your kitchen is cool in the winter, put it next to your frig or on top of it to help the kim chee out a little. It will probably take the full week. 70 degrees is ideal. If your kitchen is hot in the summer, such as 80 degrees, it may be done at five days or even before.

Wait.... tick tock tick tock. After five days or so, take a clean spoon and sample the juice. Is it sour enough? No... leave it another day. Yes... you're done. Tighten down the cap, store jar in refrigerator or reliable cold storage (under 45 degrees).

Do NOT change the recipe by decreasing the salt; the salt is essential to allow the vegetables to ferment properly and not go off into mold or unfriendly bacteria.

Koreans eat kim chee in great quantities; it is a delicious and healthy condiment. They also make it with a tremendous variety of ingredients. You can serve it with rice or meat dishes; you can make kim chee pancakes which are a delicious savory dinner pancake. Mix 1 cup rice or wheat flour, 1/2 cup drained and finely chopped kim chee, and water enough to make a thin batter.
Cook in an oiled non-stick skillet, turning once to make sure it is cooked.

One trick to the best kim chee is to use the right chile powder. Cayenne is so hot that, to my taste, it overrides the rest of the flavors. I like an ancho chile powder, medium heat, nice dark color. Hatch is good too. I realize that these chiles are out of the 100-mile range. You can get sensational southwestern chile powders at Native Seeds/SEARCH, an organization which is preserving the traditional southwestern food crops.

Whenever you help yourself to kim chee, use a clean spoon or fork. Don't lick the fork and reintroduce into the kim chee; you want to keep your personal germs out of it, to promote long-term storage. It will keep for many months in your frig.

White Radish Soup

6 cups vegetable or chicken stock, or part stock and part water
6 dried or fresh shiitake mushrooms
3 cups bean sprouts
1 pound daikon, peeled and cut into 3/4" pieces
soy sauce

If you are using dried mushrooms, put in bowl, pour boiling water over, and soak for 20 minutes. Then remove hard stems and slice the mushrooms. Reserve soaking water and add to soup (be sure not to pour in the little bits of gravel in the bottom). For fresh mushrooms, just remove stems and slice.

Heat stock, add mushrooms and radish, simmer 10 minutes. Add bean sprouts, bring to a boil, simmer 3 to 4 minutes. Taste broth and add soy sauce as needed for the saltiness you desire. Done! A very soothing and warming soup in the winter.

BTW don't use commercial bouillon cubes to make the stock; it just won't be the same. You can make a vegetable stock with chopped vegetables such as onion, carrot, scallion, parsnips, zucchini, celery, and washed dried shiitake mushrooms. If you make your stock, save the mushrooms out for the finished soup (you don't have to soak them; you already have). Just pull out of broth and slice. The rest of the vegetables can go into the compost (or feed them to your chickens). Simmer the broth 30 to 50 minutes, fish out mushrooms, strain the broth. Then season the broth with salt, soy sauce and optionally a little toasted sesame oil. Can be used in a variety of Chinese dishes.