Last week when I visit my mom, I play as a kitchen assistant as usual. When I was peeling white radish for our favorite spicy braised beef with white radish, my mom insist that I should save the skins. Actually I do not like the idea because the skin is quite stiff to chew and over rawly spicy for me.
The next day, when we were enjoying the launch, I was absolutely fascinated about a side dish, white, slightly sour and sweet with a well balanced crunchy texture. Guess what? That’s the skins we saved in the previous day. It is one of the greatest Chinese style side dishes.
I know some of you might think this is completely unnecessary. Why not using whole radish skin as we did previously? My answer is the skin tastes much better. Go ahead and check it yourself at just a small cost.
Firstly peel two skins of daikon and then add around 1 tablespoon of salt. Mix well and set aside overnight. In the next day, add pure water to slightly soak the skins to remove extra salt.
Slightly squeeze and then add sugar, light soy sauce, vinegar and sesame oil.
(optional) add a small handful of coriander stem sections.
That’s the best side dish for meat meals.
I strongly recommend matching it if you plan to cook the following dishes
1. Red cooked pork belly
2. Lu Rou Fan
3. Roasted pork belly with honey
- 2 skins of a daikon
- 1 tbsp. salt , for pickling
- 1 tsp. black vinegar
- 1/2 tbsp. light soy sauce
- 1 tsp. sugar
- 1/2 tbsp. toasted sesame oil
- 1 handful coriander stem
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Wash the daikon carefully and then peel the skin off.
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In a large bowl, add around 1 tablespoon of salt and mix well. Set aside overnight. The skin becomes soft very quickly.
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In the next day, add pure water to soak the pickled daikon skins for 5 minutes. This helps to remove the extra salt. Slightly squeeze and drain.
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Add all the seasonings, mix well and sever as a side dish.
I really do like recipes like this one as i really oppose to throwing anything edible away and also am aware of that most of the taste and the nutricious elements are in the skin and right below.
Daikon is nearly a staple in supermarkets in my country, but only the really huge ones which is a bit of a challenge for a single household like mine. I’ll have look for organic ones as I’m suspicious about what the conventially grown ones will contain in their skins.