No waste post: Japanese style pickled radishes - and eat the leaves too! Plus a Vegan Japanese dinner with produce from my veggie garden

I picked some lovely radishes from the vegetable garden, did you know that you can eat the leaves too? They are full of nutrients, as well as delicious!

Wash the radishes well, then cut in halves (or quarters if big), keeping attached some of the centre leaves. Set the outer leaves aside to use later.

These are the radishes (with the tender centre leaves) ready to pickle.

Add some salt, I used Japanese unrefined salt because I had it, but ordinary kitchen salt is fine.

Put another bowl over the radishes and then a weight on top (a rock, or anything heavy that you may have in the kitchen). Leave for a day and night, move the radishes from time to time if you like, to get them pressed. They will put out lots of water and create a brine.

This is what they will look like the day after.

Put into a jar with their brine and keep in the fridge (they will last a couple of weeks... maybe more but I don't know, we eat them quite quickly!

And now for the remaining leaves: since I had the above raw I decided to cook the rest for a few minutes in boiling water.

Then I drained them and when cool I dressed them with soy sauce (gluten free readers can use tamari) and lemon juice. The portion looks small, but they are a perfect addition to a Japanese meal...

like this one!

Vegan Japanese dinner with produce from my veggie garden

Clockwise from top left: rice with vegetable furikake, nimono of radish leaves, silken tofu with chrysanthemum leaves, rice with spinach, gari (pickled ginger). In the centre pickled radishes. Radishes, ginger, spinach and chrysanthemum all came from my garden

Yes chrysanthemum leaves are also edible (I was given a variety that only seems to make leaves, I like to eat them young). and if you want to know how to grow ginger and make your own gari click here.

Comments

How to make Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum), and Sweet New Zealand

Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum) Before I start I would like to say that I don't have a sugar thermometer, essential if you are really into confectionery, and that I didn't use much sugar for these Turkish delights. Many recipes use much more sugar, and it is not that I wanted to make a low sugar treat here (it is still pretty sweet), it is just that making it at home really makes me realize how much sugar there is already in my diet, and if I can have something with a little less... well, why not! This method is 'home friendly' i.e. these can be made at home with very little effort and equipment, and the recipe comes from my book Sweet As... where I also have the recipe for lavender and orange blossom Turkish Delights. Ingredients 1 l water 300 g sugar 2 tbsp lemon juice 100 g cornflour 1 tbsp frozen raspberries 1 tbsp rose water icing sugar (very little) and cornflour (lots) to dust. In a pot put hal...

Silver beet Paneer, a variation of Palak Paneer

The other day I showed you my curry made with borage , ‘invented’ because I have tons of it in the garden! The other green-leaf crop that does well in Auckland is silver beet. My old plants (from last year!) got so tall that I started collecting only the little leaves from the stalks, and they look like spinach. One of my favourite Indian dishes is Palak Paneer (or Panir), spinach with panir cottage cheese, and this variation is made using my silver beet. I washed (many times!) the small silver beet leaves, and then I steamed them and drain them. In a heavy pot I heated 2 tbsp of vegetable oil (I used rice bran oil) and sautéed for 30 seconds: 1/2 tsp ground cumin 1/2 tsp ground coriander 1 tsp turmeric 1/3 tsp ground chili then I added 2 roughly chopped shallots and, after 3 minutes, a good pinch of salt and the cooked silver beet. I cooked everything on low for about 20 minutes (you may need to add just a little water if the silver beet is too dry) and then finely pureed the content ...

Crema Bruciata, or Crème brûlée, with nectarines, plums and cherries

The original recipes comes from my book Sweet As... , my own recipe which doesn't require steam baking in the oven and includes nectarine slices. Plum slices and cherries were also added here, and the result was delicious! In Italy we also call this crema bruciata , but crème brûlée is most commonly used now as it sounds sophisticated :-). To make the crème you will need one egg yolk for each 100ml of cream and 1 tbsp of sugar, for this recipes I used 5 egg yolks (thus 500ml cream and 5 tbsp of sugar) and I filled 8 ramekins, plus I had a little left to fill three miniature ones. Of course if you don't put any fruit on the bottom you will need more crème. It is up to you how much fruit you put in, generally I just line the bottom of the ramekins with 4-5 think slices, this time I think I overdid it (thus the leftover crème) sicne stone fruit season is not long in NZ, and I wanted to use more fruit than crème! Don't use watery fruit and remo...

Only Recipes, by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Search This Blog