Japanese warming soup with mini daikon

A little tutorial of Japanese cuisine today. It’s a soup with sake lees that has the property of warming up the body. It’s ideal for the cold season.

I like daikon, the huge Japanese white radish… but my favorite bit is the leaves. So I’m very happy with this type.

Very small radishes, sweet and tasty.

Tons of greens !

Other recipes with this plant :
Daikon sesame unohana (click here for recipe)
Mini-daikon miso soup
Nameko eggs with daikon leaves
Water tsukemono with mini daikon
Leafy miso
nanakusa okayu

Besides the mini daikon, I had cooked kabocha pumpkin, onion, dry shiitake mushrooms. Then tofu and sakekasu.

酒粕 sakekasu is a by product of sake making. It arrives on the market in this season. The taste ? It’s like unsweetened goat cheese with a little sake… Well, you should try.

Amazake, a drink with sake kasu

Sake kasu soup recipe

1. Dashi stock : put a 1 tbs of dry fish flakes (kezuri katsuo) and water, bring to a boil.
2. Season with soy sauce and miri, simmer a few minutes.
3. Add veggies or whatever items you want (optional, veggies, fish and tofu are common choices)
4. At the end, cut the stove and blend in the sake kasu paste. Slightly reheat without boiling, and serve.

For vegan dashi stock click here.

This is the way to blend in pastes into Japanese soup. The technique is similar for miso. We have this set “sieve + spoon” but you can get them separately. Put pate in the sieve, plunge it in the stock and stir with the spoon till all the paste has melted in.