KO EN ES PT FR Japanese Side dish⏱ 40 minEdit history

Kiriboshi Daikon (Sun-Dried Radish Strips Simmered with Carrot)

Name: Kiriboshi Daikon (Sun-Dried Radish Strips Simmered with Carrot)
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Japanese
Ingredients: 30 g kiriboshi daikon (dried radish strips); 50 g carrot; 1 sheet aburaage (fried tofu pouch); 1 tsp neutral oil; 200 ml dashi; 1.5 tbsp soy sauce; 1 tbsp mirin; 1 tsp sugar

Daikon cut into thin strips and dried hard in the sun, one of the staples of the Japanese dried-goods shelf. Soaked briefly and simmered in dashi with carrot and fried tofu, it is an everyday side dish. Cut thin before drying, it comes back in minutes and swells to about four times its weight.

Ingredients

4servings

Steps

Rinse the dried strips in water, rubbing them lightly between your hands to loosen any dust.
Soak them in plenty of water for only 10-15 minutes. Squeeze dry by the handful and cut into easy lengths.
⏲ 12 min
Pour boiling water over the aburaage to rinse off the surface oil, then slice it.
Heat the oil in a pan and stir-fry the radish and carrot for about a minute.
⏲ 1 min
Add the aburaage and all the simmering liquid, bring to the boil and turn the heat down. Simmer until almost no liquid is left.
⏲ 15 min
Turn off the heat and let it cool in the pan so the flavour soaks in. Keep it chilled and take it out as a side.

Variations

Dry your own. Cut daikon into thin strips, spread them on a rack and leave them in the sun on cold, clear days until bone dry.
Harihari-zuke. Pickle the soaked strips in sweet vinegar with kombu, ginger and chilli.
Just soy or vinegar. Soak, squeeze and eat them dressed with soy sauce or vinegar.
Chikuwa or pork instead of aburaage. Keep the simmering liquid the same.

Tips

Do not soak for long. Ten to fifteen minutes is enough; past that the strips go limp.
Measure dry. They swell to about four times their weight, so 30g makes four small servings.
Squeeze them hard. That makes room for the simmering liquid.
Simmer until the liquid is almost gone. The flavour settles in as it cools.
Keep the dry strips sealed. As a dried good they keep a long time at room temperature.

More detail and the reasons why (2)

The sun takes the water out and the pot puts it back. Takuan dries its radish only until it bends, because it is going into a bran bed and needs some water left to ferment. Kiriboshi daikon is dried right through, so it keeps on a shelf at room temperature, and cooking it is a matter of putting the water back. Japanese Wikipedia says it is made from radish harvested from late autumn into winter, and that the colder the weather, the better it turns out.
Cut thin before drying, so it comes back fast. The siraegi in gamjatang needs a night's soak, a boil and peeling. These strips were cut fine before they dried, so water reaches the middle in minutes, and Japanese Wikipedia notes that they soften quickly and carry little bitterness, which is why they are easy to cook. The long timetables in soaking do not apply here. Its neighbour on the dried-goods shelf, koya-dofu, is tofu frozen and then dried, and it runs on quite different rules.