leafy daikon | GOURMANDE in OSAKA

Eat your greens. Eat your radish greens…

Japanese big radish daikon is now very well known over the world. What fewer people know is, like other radishes, they have delicious leaves. In Osaka too, many people cut out the pompom of their daikon and let in the shop… so I can have that for free. Arigato ! These are cultivated for the leaves. It’s not free, but still very cheap. They are often prepared in tsukemono (the whole root + leaves), but this time the root is a bit small for that.

That could be this type of tsukemono :
wasabi leave tsukemono

You can use leaves of small radish or of big daikon for the following recipes, if you can get enough green.
I like having many variations for an ingredient.

So we can have 2 hot dishes :

Mini-daikon miso soup
Nameko eggs with daikon leaves

3 cold dishes :

Daikon sesame unohana (click here for recipe).
Leafy miso
Water tsukemono of leafy daikon

I am stupid… as I wanted to make a chart showing what part I used to make each dish. I did, and for the 3, there are 2 wrong.
On top, you can see : leaves only (for leafy miso), tender stalks (for unohana) and the last is correct, the whole plant for the water tsukemono.

Leafy miso :

Take small or big leaves of daikon. Cut them if necessary. Rince, let dry. In a wok or a frying pan, without oil or anything, put the leaves and stir-them till they lose 1/2 volume. Add white sesame seeds, stir a little. Add brown miso, and mix in on moderate heat.
You can use this as a topping for rice, veggies, etc…

Water tsukemono :

No fuss : cut the cleaned whole plant, radish and leaves. Cut fresh hot chili. Add sea salt and fresh water. As you can see on photos, water was absorbed after a few minutes, I add to add some. Let 2 hours on the counter, then keep refrigerated. Wait 1 day. Keep 2 to 5 days.