Impressed with Green Color

Posted on Dec 11, 2013 in Hiroko's Blog

daikon oroshi green

Here are two dishes which I recently served with grated daikon radish. One with mackerel from Blue Moon and the other with chicken liver cooked with BBC Sauce (from Hiroko’s American Kitchen). Regular daikon radish is white, but this one has beautiful green colored-inside flesh. This daikon is sold as “green meat radish” at Tamarack Hollow Farm at Union Square Greenmarket.

Buying good daikon radish at Greenmarket was a challenge for me in the past years. Outside of the radish looked OK, but ninety percent of the time I ended up with the ones whose inside flesh is dry and stringy. These ones were almost inedible for me. Then, I found this “green meat radish”. The meat is juicy, tightly packed and smooth. Now I serve it a lot grated with seasonally changing grilled fish and winter vegetable tempura. I also make a quick pickles and great salad out of it.daikon

Why do I love daikon? It is a Japanese thing. It tastes good, and, at the same time and the most importantly, is good for our health! Daikon is one of the food items which navigates me throughout cold winter time without catching a cold. Daikon is rich in Vitamin C, lignin and digestion enzymes.

Here are couple of tips for using daikon;

1. After grating 80% of Vitamin C disappears. So, grate it just before serving it.

2. More Vitamin C is found closer to the skin, so rinse the root thoroughly and grate it without peeling it.

3. When daikon comes with green leaves, cut the leaves from the root in order to keep the moisture in the root during storage. Daikon leaves are rich in Vitamin C, A, calcium and potassium. Do not throw them away, but use in cooking.

4. Winter time daikon is sweeter than the one in summer time.

5. When you purchase a regular whole large daikon root, use 1/3 of the top – sweetest part – for grating and salad, the center part – sweet part – for salad, pickles and simmering and the bottom part – spicy – for condiment.

6. Green meat daikon is best eaten fresh grated, in pickles and salad.

I will post a couple of quick daikon recipes later.