Simmered Daikon with Ground Chicken is a common winter dinner dish in Japan. Thick daikon rounds are cooked until soft and gently seasoned in Dashi soup, then thickened with potato starch. The resulting silky sauce/soup keeps the dish warm while eating, making it a healthy and delightful entrée for cold nights.
Daikon, or Japanese radish, is a white root vegetable widely used in Japanese cuisine and around the world. Typically long and white with a smooth surface, daikon is low in calories, rich in dietary fiber, vitamin C, potassium, and digestive enzymes. While crispy when eaten raw, it becomes soft when cooked. When daikon is cooked in rice washing water, the bitterness is removed from daikon. If you happen to wash rice before you cook the dish, keep the water; it can be used to cook daikon. Otherwise, follow the recipe.
Daikon readily absorbs seasonings and flavors during cooking, making it an excellent companion for steamed rice. In this dish, daikon is cooked with a small amount of chicken, conveying a full and satisfying chicken flavor to the daikon. While Yuzu citrus may be challenging to find outside Japan, its distinctive aromatic flavor complements the daikon dish well. Alternatively, ginger can be used as a substitute for Yuzu, offering a compatible flavor for the wintery thick soup.
Simmered Daikon with Ground Chicken is a quintessential home-cooked dish and may be less commonly found in restaurants. Still, its straightforward yet delicious character makes it a dish worth trying at home. We hope you enjoy it!
Simmered Daikon with Ground Chicken
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Ingredients
- 20 oz Daikon radish 1/2 large Daikon
- 1 Tbsp rice
- 4 cup Dashi
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 4 Tbsp Sake
- 4 Tbsp Mirin
- 2 Tbsp soy sauce
- 6 oz ground chicken
- Yuzu peel, cut very thinly optional
- 2 Tbsp Katakuriko potato starch or corn starch
- 2 Tbsp water
Instructions
- Cut the Daikon into 1" thick rounds and peel.
- In a medium pot, add rice and water, and let it boil for a minute. Remove the rice. Add the daikon in the rice water and cook for about 20 minutes until it becomes tender and translucent. Drain the water.
- Cook daikon in Dashi for another 10 minutes, then add salt, sake, mirin, and soy sauce, and cook for 15 minutes, loosely covered. Add ground chicken and break apart, skimming fat and scum with a mesh strainer. If available, add yuzu peel.
- Make a starch slurry in a small bowl and add it to the soup. Stir thoroughly. Cook until the soup thickens.
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