Saturday, February 6, 2010

Daikon marinated in beer 大根のビール漬け

Tsukemono 漬け物 is always one of the favorites in Izakaya. Most common one is called "asazuke" 浅漬 which I posted in the past. This one is new to me but was mentioned by my niece and she raved about it. I looked for the recipe on the Internet and found quite a few. I am not sure who first invented the dish but this is definitely a new wave tsukemono. There are some variations but after reading these recipes, I decided to base mine on one of them but the amount of sugar looked way too much, so even not knowing how this should taste, I reduced the sugar in half (which, in retrospect, was the right decision). I made a small amount since I never tasted this before.

I mixed the following ingredients in a bowl and poured it in a gallon-size Ziploc bag; 
Beer 180* ml (I used Samuel Adams Summer Ale), rice vinegar 25 ml, salt 20 grams (I used Kosher salt), sugar 50 grams (the origianl called for 100 grams), Japanese hot mustard powder 10 grams. 
I used my electronic scale to weigh these. I am glad my scale had a metric mode. I used about 10 cm long medium daikon, peeled, cut into quarters length wise. I just put into the marinade and into the refrigerator.

We tasted it after 5 days and, then, at 1  and 2 weeks. It mellows out after 1-2 weeks. This is surprisingly good as everyone is saying. The daikon is still very crunchy with a combination of flavors. But, to me, even after cutting the sugar in half, it is still a bit too sweet. My wife said she liked it and did not feel it was too sweet. This one goes well as is as a side while sipping sake and also with rice. I may experiment with different kinds of beer.

P.S. I originally wrorte "90 ml" but it should have been 180ml.

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