CSA Week 17: Crispy Daikon Cake / Turnip Stalks with Black Bean Sauce

So I didn't use all my daikon yesterday. The bulk went into tonight's dinner:

• Golden Crisp Daikon Cake with Spicy Herb Soy Sauce

Yesterday I began this recipe from Epicurious for Golden Crisp Daikon Cake. The results are there up in the top of the photo, though I only cooked about half the daikon cake. The little crunchy/squishy/sweet daikon pieces were really tasty. The dipping sauce is next to it, it was also very good. A nice salty to the cake's sweet.

Some advice:

1) My bamboo strainer wouldn't fit with my cake pan under the wok's lid, so I used a ramekin. Worked fine. Here's a photo of the cake just about to be steamed in the wok.

2) It says steam until "firm to the touch". But you'll find it's still a bit moist and squishy, on account of being glutinous and in a steamer. It sets up more when it cools.

3) It says to fry for about 5 minutes a side, but has you cut the cake into little batons. I interpreted that as fry each of the four sides...not just two like in the photo. They got a bit more Golden Crisp than they should have been... Still tasty though.

4) Don't skip the lop chong, it gives it a certain somethin somethin that can't be replicated. Unless you're vegetarian or something, then add a bit of five spice. The sausage is easy to find at Asian markets, they're small and red, and usually labeled Sweet Pork Sausage. Also don't skip the dried shrimp. (But you probably could and no one would notice.)

5) I substituted the Spring Onion we got this week for the green onions. Worked great.

Also, if you did skip the sausage and shrimp this would be an awesome vegan use of daikon, if that's more your thing.

• Turnip Stalks, Hakurei Turnips, Mizuna, and Summer Squash with Black Bean Garlic Sauce

So I saved all the stalks from the daikons and from the Hakurei turnips, broke them into 3 inch lengths, washed the bejesus out of them, and stirfried them with the Hakurei turnips, the last of my wilting mizuna, last summer squash, some dried shitakes, a bit of garlic, thai basil, and ginger, and a bottle of Black Bean Garlic Sauce. Serious umami-bomb but still really good. Would be better over rice, but didn't make any due to the daikon cake. Plenty of leftovers for that though.

Finally the leftover Kalbi Spareribs were finished off too.

• Field Trip: Lucky Mart

These recipes all necessitated a run to Lucky Mart to get various odd Asian sundries. We do a major run about every two or three months to stock up. I always try to pick up some good snacks while I'm at it.

This time it was Jackfruit Chips, and they were excellent. The bag's from Vietnam, and it's basically jackfruit hulls that are fried. That's it. Crunchy and tastes just like jackfruit. They'd be awesome in trail mix. We ate about half the bag on the way home. (Not recommended, major dried fruit stomach expansion.) There didn't appear to be any preservatives in them, which was confirmed by this excellent Engrish endorsement.


I'm not sure exactly what the chemical substance is, but I too am glad it was not used in the process of production.