Cream Cheese with Pickled Daikon クリームチーズ 沢庵入り

While we were in Japan, we had cream cheese with  “iburi-gakko いぶりがっこ” at one of izakayas we visited. “ Iburi-gakko” is a local food peculiar to the northern part of the main land Japan (Tohoku region 東北地方).  It is made by hanging daikon radish over the hearth (old farm houses had open fire hearths) which dried and also smoked the daikon. It was then cured (not with vinegar but with salt and rice bran mixture). This produced “iburi-gakko”. It is crunchy with a slightly salty and smoky flavors.  The combination of cream cheese and iburi-gakko was really great. Although we did not have “iburi-gakko”, I made a similar dish using the pickled daikon I made.  I served it with cucumber and nappa cabbage “asazuke” (picture #1).

This was a part of small “otsumami おつまみ”  dishes (picture #2). From left to right, baby artichoke hearts and olives dressed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, renkon in sweet vinegar or “Subasu 酢蓮” (subject described in a separate post) with salt-broth soaked snap peas スナップ豌豆の塩びたし and cream cheese with pickled daikon. These are just nice small dishes that go with cold sake in the evening.

Ingredients:
1/3 block of cream cheese, warmed up to room temperature
1 inch home made picked daikon, cut into small dice

Directions:
In a bowl, add the daikon and cream cheese and mix.
On the plastic wrap, make a log about 1 inch in diameter, roll and wrap it tightly (picture #3)
Refregerator at least one hour before slicing

Although, it lacks the smoky flavor of “iburi-gakko”, the salty and sweet crunchy daikon, really worked with the cream cheese. I will be making this again for sure.