Daikon cakes

My sister-in-law, also a CSA member (although a different CSA, as she doesn't live near us), sent me a recipe for daikon cakes.  Given that we have lots of daikon radishes, I decided to give it a try.  

Based on her suggestion, I cut the amount of salt in the recipe.  Now that we've made it a few times, once with the husband using the printed recipe on which I didn't write the correction, it is clear that the recipe is way too high in its salt content as posted.

I've been doubling the recipe, as I like eating the cold cakes as leftovers.  The leftovers also heat up pretty well in the toaster oven.

Here's the ingredient list for the double batch:

3 cups grated daikon radish (a bit more or less is okay, if your daikon isn't exactly sized)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2-3 shallots, or a small onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup of panko bread crumbs (I've tried regular bread crubs and panko.  I think the cakes have a better texture with panko.)
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon Sriracha
1/3 cup oil for frying (I used olive oil)


If you prefer your foods a bit less spicy, cut the amounts of pepper and Sriracha -- but the cakes really aren't that hot.

Here's my daikon and a shallot with three bulbs.

Peel and grate the daikon.  It's our friend, the box grater.  Large holes.

Once grated, put the daikon in a bowl, put the 1/2 teaspoon of salt on it, then stir to mix in the salt.  Put the bowl into the fridge for at least a half hour.  The salt is going to make the daikon shed some of its water.

After the time is up (or when you're ready to move to the next step), drain the daikon.  I also squeeze it a bit to encourage some additional water to come out.

Cut the onion/shallots finely and add in two cloves of garlic.  I put my garlic through a press, but you can chop it finely if you'd rather.

Here you see the squeezed daikon, the shallot and garlic mix, and the panko crumbs.

Put all of the ingredients into a bowl.

Stir.

Put a sheet of parchment paper on a cookie sheet.  Form the mixture into patties.

Add the oil to your pan (I'm using a 12" skillet here -- I've used both nonstick and regular with no difference, given the amount of oil -- the night I made this batch, I had something else in the other pan) and turn it on to a medium high heat.  Add half of the patties when the oil is hot (but not smoking).  I put them in by sliding them off of a spatula.

After three minutes, flip the daikon cakes.  The observant reader will notice that a daikon cake has magically appeared in the photo below.  I cooked two batches of differing quantities, and forgot to take the first side photo of the first batch.

Drain the daikon cakes on paper towels on plate.  Try one to make sure it is good.  (It will be, but you should still try one while you're waiting for the second batch to fry.)

 Plate and serve.

 We had them as an accompaniment to shrimp with a seafood rub, cooked sous vide.

Husband likes to eat the daikon cakes with oyster sauce.  He's been frequenting an Asian market lately.

Note that the recipe claims the single batch is for four servings.  The two of us can eat a single batch, particularly when we don't have other sides or a big main dish.  The double batch (which is the amount in this post) leaves leftovers for the next day for lunches, which is always a good thing.  Eat cold or warm them in a toaster oven.

More David Chang: Pearled barley porridge

This month's Food and Wine magazine has a recipe for pearl barley porridge with ham and eggs by David Chang.

Nothing in the recipe comes from the veggie boxes... but I did have an opened bag of barley in my pantry.  When my mother-in-law visits, she makes a mushroom soup that uses barley, but we don't usually use barley ourselves after her visit.  So I've been wondering what I might be able to do with it, and then this recipe appears.  And it's from David Chang, who brought me the world's best carrot recipe.  So I had to try it, despite the husband's lack of enthusiasm for a dinner with the word "porridge" in it (followed closely by his lack of enthusiasm for a dinner with the word "barley" in it).

You'll see that the recipe calls for the use of ham.  I didn't use it, because I don't eat meat.  However, I did buy a thick slice of baked ham for the husband to fry up small cubes to be added to his barley when it was done, but then it didn't get used because he made lamb for dinner (photo at the bottom of the post).

You start by putting 1 cup of cider, 3 cups of stock (I used my homemade vegetable stock, but the recipe listed either vegetable or chicken as an ingredient), and 2 cups of water into a saucepan, then add a sheet of kombu.  Bring to a boil, then cover and steep for 40 minutes.

The recipe then says to pour the broth into a bowl, wipe out the saucepan and use it to make the rest of the recipe.  Since you're going to dirty another dish anyway, perhaps it's best to just use another saucepan, if you have two.  Then you can start on this next step of cooking the onions while the broth finishes steeping.

Thinly slice 2 onions.  (I used four large yellow shallots instead.)  Put 4 tablespoons of butter into the pan, melt it, then add the onions.  Cook at low heat until the onions are golden, which the recipe says should be about 20 minutes.  I forgot to time this step, but it was probably about that much time.  Be careful to stir more often than I did, or you'll get some browning.  (The barley turned out fine, even with this browning.)

Now add your barley.  The recipe calls for 2 cups of it.  It turned out that I had one and a half cups in the bag.  I figured that I'd just put in less broth (3/4 of the amount of barley = 3/4 of the amount of broth), but then decided to put all of the broth into the pan.  When I cook grains, it seems that I always have the liquid boil off or get absorbed long before the cooking time suggested in the recipe.  So I figured it might be better to start with more liquid for a one hour cook.  In addition to the barley and broth, add 2 tablespoons of soy sauce.

Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer.  Cover during the simmering process and stir the barley occasionally.

It ended up like a barley risotto.  The original recipe says to serve it with poached eggs.  As the sous vide cooker was set to too low of a temperature with the husband's lamb in it, I decided to fry my eggs instead.

Here's my dinner, the barley with two fried eggs and some scallions.

And here's the husband's dinner, the barley, garnished with scallions, with his lamb (cooked two days sous vide).

Verdict: The husband liked the barley, which was a surprise to both of us.  I wouldn't bother to buy scallions for a garnish for it again; I think the recipe would be fine without them.  In the summer, I'd have used some chopped chives from my herb garden, but those plants are under a lot of snow at the moment.

While I'd make the recipe again if I have barley to use, I won't be running out to buy more barley.  I'm a bigger fan of David Chang's carrot recipe.

What's in the box, 3/5/14 edition

This is it.  The last week of the 48 week share. 

This week in the box: carrots, parsnips, purple top turnips (sigh), watermelon radishes, kohlrabi, apples, pea tendrils, and micro-mesclun.

We now get a week off, then start our second full-year share.  Last spring, our boxes included bread from local bakeries, preserves, locally roasted coffee and other non-root surprises.  I am hoping for the same this year when the boxes start up again. 

Japanese Slaw

In my quest to use cabbage, I searched for a recipe for cole slaw.  I don't really like versions of cole slaw with lots of mayonnaise, so I was happy to find this recipe for Japanese Slaw with Daikon Radish.  Rather than mayo, it uses a dressing made from rice vinegar, sesame oil, honey, and olive oil.

I modified the recipe to use only red cabbage, partly because I didn't have any green cabbage.  However, I think it's fine with a single type of cabbage.  Around here, little bits of cabbage are okay, but anything too centered on cabbage is not going to be a hit.

Gather your veggies: a red cabbage, daikon radish and some carrots.

While I've been a bit down on cabbages in my posts, it is a really beautiful vegetable.

Thinly slice two cups of red cabbage.

Peel the carrots and daikon radish, then shred using the large holes on a box grater.  You're aiming for 2 cups of carrot and 1-2 cups of daikon.  (I like extra daikon.)  You don't need to be exact with the measurements for any of the vegetables though -- mix to your liking and according to your veggie availability.

Put the shreds of cabbage, carrot and daikon into a bowl.  I usually go right into the serving bowl.

Prepare your dressing.

1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup sesame oil
3 tablespoons olive oil (the recipe called for canola oil, but I decided to use olive oil instead)

Put it into a jar and shake.  If you'll be making the slaw often, you can double the recipe and keep the extra dressing in a jar for the next time.  I did this and the dressing was fine over a week later.

Pour the dressing over the veggies and stir.  Cover and refrigerate until use.

Leftovers of the slaw have held up well for a couple of days.  Everything stays crunchy, although the daikon does get a purple hue from the red cabbage after mingling for a while.

Let me eat cake

People can not live on veggies alone.  Sometimes we need cake.

One of my favorite cakes to make is this Hawaiian Wedding Cake (I can not vouch for the authenticity of the name).  My mom got the recipe from a co-worker at a job long ago.  It's very easy to make: put all of the ingredients into one bowl, stir, pour into a greased and floured pan, bake, cool, and frost.

My well-worn copy of the recipe:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Take out a stick of butter (or margarine, if you insist) and a 8 oz block of cream cheese to soften on the counter.

Gather the ingredients for the cake:

2 c. flour
2 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 c. coarsely chopped walnuts
1 c. sweetened coconut
1 20 oz can of crushed pineapple, including juice
2 tsp baking soda

Later, for the frosting, you will need:

1 stick of butter
1 8 oz block of cream cheese
1 1/2 c. confectioner's sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Put all of the cake ingredients into a mixing bowl.

Stir.  It's quick; I promise.

Pour the batter into a greased and floured pan.

Bake.  The recipe says 30-35 minutes, but I usually end up needing to add another 10-15 minutes.  You want the cake to be browned on top and solidly baked.  Test the center with a toothpick.  Even before that, you can see the center wiggle when you pull out the rack -- if that's happening, so need to test with a toothpick, as the cake isn't ready yet. 

When it's done, take it out of the oven and cool for at least an hour.

After the cake cools for a while, start your frosting.  Cream the stick of butter and block of cream cheese together.

Then add 1 1/2 c. of confectioner's sugar and 2 tsp of vanilla.

Mix until very well blended.

Frost the cake, then refrigerate it until you're ready to eat it.  I frost the cake in the pan rather than turning the cake out.  I think the frosting is too rich to have it on the sides of the cake as well.  Besides, the cake tastes so good that you don't need to worry about how it looks when you present it.

Piece of cake.  A secret: the center of the cake will end up being a bit thinner (or more compressed) than the edges, despite fully baking the cake.  When you put the frosting on to make it look even on top, the center of the cake will get a bit more frosting.  If you're a fan of frosting, those are the pieces you'd like to have.

My mom says that her co-worker made these as cupcakes.  I've never done that, but suppose it would be a good way to serve the cake on a table of finger foods.  I also suppose it would account for the baking time being so much different on the recipe than what I usually experience.

I always keep the ingredients for this cake in the house, as it's so easy to make when you need to bring a dessert somewhere (or when you just decide that you'd like to have cake for dessert tonight).

Carrots at Ribelle

The husband took me for a birthday dinner to Ribelle.

You might think me crazy, but one of the dishes I ordered was carrots.

They were roasted whole, skins on, and were very tender.  Thinking that I should try to figure out how to slow roast a carrot.

The carrots were served whole, looking like a pile of logs to me and a pile of hot dogs to the husband, garnished with pickled mustard seeds, a berry jam, and some ground hazelnuts.  Husband was more of a fan than I of the combination, although I found that the bites that had jam were much better than the ones without.  Perhaps chopped hazelnuts and a jam or reduction of some sort... I did buy cherry juice at Trader Joe's recently, without a purpose for it.  Perhaps I've found a purpose for it.

I'll post here if I do try something.  We have at least 7 pounds of carrots in our fridge, so there are plenty to experiment with while still having enough to cook my favorite way. 

Parsnip puree

In one of my recent boxes was a mega-parsnip, large enough to serve two people (or even three).  For comparison, the parsnip to its right in the photo below is what one would consider a normal sized parsnip.

To make parsnip puree, cut off the top and bottom, then peel the parsnips.  (These are good scraps to save for veggie broth.)  Cut it into 3/4" chunks (smaller if you're in a rush) and put them into a sauce pan (or larger pot, if you're making a lot).  Cover with water and bring to a boil.  Reduce the temperature to a simmer.  Cook until the chunks are soft (at least 10-15 minutes).  Check with a fork to see if they are soft.

Once cooked, drain the parsnips, then put them back in the pan.  Add some butter, milk, salt and pepper.  In place of pepper this time, I used some of the Citrus A'peel grater from Simply Organic, as our puree was going to be paired with seafood.  This grater includes sesame seeds, orange peel, lemon peel, garlic, onion, parsley, coriander, and fennel seeds.

While you could mash with a potato masher, it won't make a smooth puree.  To get a smooth puree, I use my immersion blender.  You could probably use a food processor or blender instead, but I haven't tried that.

We served the parsnip puree with pea tendrils and scallops.