Pickled Daikon

On the daikon radish theme from a few posts back, I wanted to share a good recipe for a pickled daikon radish relish that my friend Pat Whetham of Whetham Organic Farm introduced me to, that I've learned to make from the Nourishing Traditions cookbook by Sally Fallon.

As of late I've been exploring the world of fermented after watching a video of Sandor Katz who wrote The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved and Wild Fermentation, and coincidentally attending a fermentation class at a United Plant Savers 2008 Planting The Future Conference in Oxford, Mi at a charming place called Upland Hills Ecological Awareness Center last fall.

This basics on fermentation class was offered by Linda Conroy of Moonwise Herbs, and I took it completely by coincidence, having originally signed up to hear Joyce Wardwell, who couldn't make it at the last minute. When that kind of thing occurs I figure there must be a reason.

Linda was an inspiration and after class she gave us all samples of wonderful tasty things, including piima and sourdough to take home and use to begin our own fermentations.
What fun.

Well, somewhere in that same timeframe, Pat gave her CSA subscribers some little baggies of fermented daikon radish to sample in our shares, and then in one of our discussions of sauerkraut, she mentioned fermentation using whey.
Bingo.

I had whey, from my brand new piima, and was wondering what to do with it!

So herewith I'll share the basic recipe for Pickled Daikon Radish.
Peel and grate one or two daikon radish roots into a sturdy bowl. Add 1 T sea salt and about a quarter of a cup of whey.
Using a wood mallet or potato masher, pound the grated radish until it releases its juices. Pack it all into a wide mouth quart mason jar, pressing it down until the juice rises to cover the radish, and leaving a good inch of headspace.
Cover, and keep at room temperature at least three days to get started fermenting, and then refrigerate. WALLA! Pickled daikon, a good digestive garnish to any meal.

Next, sauerkraut.

a small cheap pleasure

Flowers from the sprouted top of a daikon radish. A pretty little reminder of life in the dead of winter. And free.
Everyone knows about sprouting the discarded tops of root veggies, so I won't go into the how-to. Just a reminder to do it.
(For a larger picture, click on the photo.)
Just look at the fine veining of color in these delicate petals. Lovely.



I feel really kinda strange, watching young bloggers who are discovering thriftiness and "making do" for the first time. Everyone is saying "green" now, and the three R's - reduce, recycle, reuse - suddenly trendy in a big way with mainstream Americans. I hope it's not a passing fad, to be thrown in the rubbish bin when the economy picks up again.
On this subject, AOL just ran a feature about the top 25 thrifty ideas from its subscribers, and except for the one about grinding your own meat, I have to admit - I already do all of those thrifty things. Thriftiness is a way of life around here. I'm so hip (she said with an ironic sigh.)
But in the end, I say about this sudden trend of 'frugal living made cool', more power to 'em.