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Recipes with daikon radish

3 recipes that use daikon radish, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Zaru soba, takes 20 minutes. It is most often cooked with kombu, mirin and soy sauce.

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Zaru soba

Zaru soba (ざるそば) is the simplest and most loved way to eat buckwheat noodles in Japan, served chilled on a bamboo tray (zaru) with a small cup of dipping sauce. You pick up a mouthful of noodles, dip them, and slurp. The usual tsuyu sauce is made with bonito; this one gets its savoury depth from kombu and dried shiitake. Refreshing on a hot day, with grated wasabi, spring onion and a little nori. Chef's tip: the ice-water rinse is not optional. It washes off the surface starch and tightens the noodles so they're slippery and firm; soba shops call this 'shime', the finishing chill.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Vegetable tempura

Tempura (天ぷら) became a Tokyo street food in the Edo period, when stalls fried it to order by the city's riverbanks. The secret to the thin, lacy coating is an ice-cold, lumpy batter mixed at the last second and vegetables fried in small batches. Sweet potato, aubergine, pepper, shiitake and green beans all work well. Serve straight from the pan with a light dipping sauce and grated daikon. Chef's tip: keep everything cold. Use ice-cold water, mix the batter only seconds before frying, leave it lumpy, and stand the bowl in a larger bowl of ice. Cold batter hitting hot oil is what makes the lacy, crackly shell that Tokyo tempura masters prize.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Agedashi tofu

Agedashi tofu (揚げ出し豆腐) is a classic izakaya dish eaten all over Japan: cubes of soft tofu dusted in potato starch, fried until they form a thin, crisp shell, then bathed in a hot, savoury broth. The coating turns silky as it soaks up the sauce while the tofu inside stays creamy. Usually topped with bonito flakes; here it's grated daikon, ginger and spring onion with a kombu-shiitake broth instead. Chef's tip: coat the tofu in starch right before it goes into the oil, not ahead of time; if it sits, the starch turns damp and the coating fries up gummy instead of crisp.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Goes well with daikon radish