Friday, July 11, 2014

Cold simmered vegetables 冷製野菜の煮付け

The last time when I was at the Japanese grocery store, I bought a whole daikon 大根. When I came home I found 1/3 of the daikon I previously purchased in the refrigerator. So, I decided to make something from this left over daikon. Although I was not sure what I was going to make, I decided to just prep it. I peeled and cut the daikon into half circles (about 1 inch thick) and boiled them with a small amount of raw rice. After 30-40 minutes, I removed the daikon pieces and put them in a sealable container and placed it in the refrigerator. The next day, I made dashi broth from dried kelp and bonito flakes. I seasoned the broth with mirin and light colored "usukuchi" soy sauce 薄口醤油 and simmered the precooked daikon and carrot (this was not precooked). Although the dish was ready-to-go the weather was extremely hot and humid so the idea of eating a hot dish was not appealing so I placed it in the refrigerator. The next day, I served these vegetable cold. I added a bit more light colored soy sauce since the seasoning gets muted when served cold. Since we had a small amount of left over sou vide salmon, I also served that cold with a dab of Japanese hot mustard.



We were pleasantly surprised at how good and refreshing these cold simmered vegetables were. The dashi broth was very good since I made it without taking shortcuts.



We will make this dish as a regular "teiban" 定番 dish during the summer. We have more left, so we will be enjoying this a few more times.

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