I’ve been trying out some different dishes with that dehydrated bean curd that I showed you all a couple posts ago. This time I cooked them with some shredded ginger soaked in agave (kind of like a honey ginger substitute). Came out really great! Served it up with a veggie stir fry, daikon and kombu strips, and some burdock root (gobo).
So this is a bit of a continuation from my last post on daikon. I wrote about how I cut the daikon in nice thick slices and cook it with daikon…but there’s more!
So, before I slice the daikon up, I actually wash it really thoroughly and peel it with a knife. I peel off the outer layer generously thick because I use it for a separate dish: I slice it all up into strips and simmer it in water and soy sauce for about 15 mins. I do this while the round slices of daikon are cooking with the kombu in the big pot. Once the kombu is done, I take it out, cut it into strips, and mix it in with the daikon skin. This makes a really delicious topping for rice!
I also like to tie the kombu in big knots and eat it with the daikon slices!
Today’s lunch idea (:
Indulged in a vegan burger patty, plus a bowl of sliced carrots, kombu, marinated daikon, and tofu, topped with sesame seeds!
(Sorry, keeping posts short until exams are over!)
I came across a daikon (Japanese radish) in the market today and it was so fresh and perfect that I had to get it! But I’m going away for a few days so I knew I’d have to finish it all today, so I got creative (:
Tonight’s dinner:
- Salad with slices of raw daikon
- Cooked daikon topping for my rice
- Thick slices of daikon cooked with kombu (seaweed) & bundles of konjaku
I like to put a big sheet of kombu over top of the daikon slices when I cook them – it acts as an extra lid to keep the heat in, not to mention the wonderful flavour!
I want to share a dish that I’ve been enjoying a lot lately: Ojiya!
It’s an old traditional hotpot dish called “ojiya”. The word is thought to originate from Spanish, and has similar counterparts in Asian cuisine such as zosui.
It’s a great way of using up left over cold rice, veggies, tofu, and whatever else you’ve got kicking around in the fridge!
Here’s what you do:
Prepare some kind of broth…or even just a pot of water.
Then, you add in the rice, veggies, tofu, etc. I always like to add seaweed because of its enormous health benefits – especially its high iodine content which is super important for vegans/vegetarians. Kombu and wakame (types of seaweed) also add so much great flavour that if you put them in the hotpot, you don’t necessarily even need a broth! If you want to give it some sweetness, I love adding in some carrots (:
At the end, you can add some miso to taste. And right before you eat, you can throw in some baby spinach, topped with sesame seeds and crushed pepper.
As a side note: this dish was apparently often prepared for people when they were feeling under the weather because of it’s incredible nutritious value, ease of digestion, and…well…probably just because it’s really yummy! It’s my new chicken noodle soup (:
In traditional high-end Japanese restaurants, it was usually served at the end of a course meal in place of where we would have gotten desert in Western restaurants.
