Daikon salad with wasabi sauce

On the weekend, I went to Minatomirai in Yokohama (map) with a friend of mine. Yokohama was developed as a port city 150 years ago so that means there are many old buildings and small houses near the port. Some of the places look empty and give you a feeling of a place dying out.

However, this area called 'Minatomirai', which is just at the port was renovated in a modern way and now it's more like an urban sea-side entertainment complex with theme parks, cinemas, concert halls, bars, cafes, art spaces and shopping malls. This place fascinates a lot of camera people as well as it creates a romantic yet nostalgic atmosphere.

Today I will make a salad for summer time. When you don't feel like cooking or eating oily things, then why not make a salad with a wasabi sauce. The wasabi might increase your appetite.

Ingredients:

daikon

lettuce

wasabi(1tsp)

mayonnaise(1tbsp)

vinegar(1tbsp)

salt

1- Finely cut the daikon and lettuce.

2- Make the sauce. Mix wasabi, vinegar, mayonnaise and a bit of salt.

3- Mix 1 and 2 together.

You can also cool it down in a refrigerator before eating.

Itadakimasu!

Daikon stew & Vietnamese food report 3

Vietnam is an amazing place for food. The country is just so rich in ingredients because it's full of diversified nature such as jungles, mountains, rivers and the ocean.

This restaurant I visited was over 100 years old and has only one item on the menu, this is the recipe for snakehead fish. The fish is marinated with curry-tasting spices and you can fry it in a deep oil on your table with many types of herbs. Then eat them together with some rice noodles and nuts.

Today's cooking is the stew with daikon leaves. The daikon I bought had healthy looking leaves which had two slugs! So why not eat them?

Ingredients:

daikon leaves

onion

chicken

maitake mushrooms

milk

flour (1tbsp)

butter (or olive oil)

salt/pepper

dried oregano

consomme soup (1cup)

1- Stir fry the cut onion and chicken with some butter. Put the flour in and stir well.

2- Put a cup of soup into 1 and boil.  Add the cut daikon leaves and mushrooms.

3- Pour two cups of milk. Adjust the taste with salt, pepper and oregano.

Finish! Itadakimasu.

Daikon salad

When non-Japanese people come to Japan for the first time, everyone I know acclaims the Japanese trains and their network, saying it's fast, convenient, organized, punctual, safe, clean and quiet....

But lately I see more and more places outside Japan have advanced trains and even the smart card ticketing system (called "PASMO" in Japan). Sometimes when I'm in China, Taiwan or Korea, I just feel like I'm in Tokyo as it looks the same or better...

Today's daikon salad is a good balance to have with a high calorie meal. Simple and quick.

Ingredients:

daikon

carrot

vinegar

sugar

1- Peel all the daikon and the carrot.

2- Mix the vinegar and sugar. Put it on 1 and stir.

Itadakimasu.

Stir fried daikon and pork

Hello!
It had been cold and raining a lot last week but luckily we had a nice hanami (cherry blossoms viewing) under the beautiful sky on Saturday. Koishikawa botanic garden, Tokyo(map) is a place where you can see well-maintained cherry blossoms avoiding crowded people in this season. Everyone brought some food and drinks and had a chat under the young blossoms.

Today I will cook a easy but tasty daikon dish. The daikon absorbs the nice taste of the pork and soup.

Ingredients;

daikon

sliced pork

soy sauce(1tbsp)

sake(1tbsp)

sugar(1tsp)

mirin(sweet rice wine)(1tbsp)

soup(dried bonito)

1- Cut daikon in a 5cm stick and daikon leaves finely.

2- Stir fry the sliced pork. When the pork is cooked, put the daikon in and fry together.

3- Add 2 cups of soup, soy sauce, sake, sugar and mirin. Put the daikon leaves and cook until it has no soup.

Itadakimasu.

Boiled daikon and chicken

You can find daikon at markets all through the winter in Japan as daikon can survive the cold conditions. My family in Hokkaido keeps daikon in the soil before the ground gets frozen. Staying inside the earth is warmer than being exposed to the weather, therefore you can keep it longer.

Daikon is very useful for cooking. It absorbs much soup in so it's good to boil with fish, squid, meat or other ingredients that compose a nice soup. If you get a non-spicy daikon,  you can shred and eat with some other vegetables. You could also prepare it with wakame seaweed as a salad.

Today I will boil the daikon with chicken legs. After you cut daikon, please chamfer every corner so that the daikon can absorb the soup more effectively. The other purpose of chamfering is to stop it getting broken easily while its boiling.

Ingredients;

daikon

chicken leg

soy sauce (1tbsp)

mirin [Japanese sweet rice wine] (1tbsp)*

sake (1tbsp)

sugar (1tbsp)

salt
*If you have.

1- Cut daikon into 3cm pieces, peel it and cut it in half, then chamfer the corners.

2- Boil 1 and put the chicken legs in.

3- Add sugar, mirin, sake, a bit of salt and soy sauce. Get the scum away a few times and boil it until there is less water left.

Daikon tastes better the next day, so you can keep some for tomorrow!

Itadakimasu.