Stewed Daikon Using Chicken Stock and Grated Ginger

Chinese has one other way to categorize food by their "properties," such as "cold" and "hot." To explain it in the simplest way, these properties indicate what the food will do to your body. Take watermelon for instance, it's consider a cold food, so eating watermelon will give your body a cooling effect, the same goes to daikon.

What about hot food? Chilies and lamb are two of the examples. However, food properties can change depending on how the ingredient was used or prepared. Like tomatoes, if eating it raw, it can lower your body temperature; but after cooking, tomatoes become hot, and will give you a warming effect instead. 

As for the stewed daikon here, since daikon is on the colder side, so this recipe incorporates grated ginger - a warming agent to make it a more balanced dish.

Stewed daikon using chicken stock and grated ginger -

Ingredients?

• 1 medium daikon radish (pick the thicker kind instead of the long and skinny variety)
• Some unsalted or low sodium chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon grated ginger
• Some corn starch and water mixture
• Some salt
• Some cilantro leaves

How?

Peel the daikon and cut into about 1.5-inch pieces.

Scrape the ginger with a metal spoon to peel off the skin. Finely chop or grate the ginger. 

The key is to use a big pot with wide surface. That way all the daikon pieces can evenly distributed on the bottom and all cooked through at the same time. Lay the daikon accordingly. Do not discard the tips or edges of the daikon, just squeeze them to any empty spaces in between. 

Pour in the chicken stock till slightly over the daikon. Evenly distribute the salt and grated ginger. Bring to a boil first then lower the heat to keep it at a simmer and put the lid on. Cook till the daikon turns tender and can be poked through easily with a chopstick. Takes about 30 to 35 minutes. 

Carefully remove the daikon to the serving dish. Meanwhile, mix some corn starch with water to make a thickening agent. Bring the pot to a light boil again and whisk in the mixture till the stock thickens, resembling a gravy-like sauce.

Pour the sauce over daikon, you can stack up a few daikon pieces to create some heights. Lastly, garnish with cilantro leaves right before serving.

It's light but flavorful since the daikon fully soaked up all the essence from the chicken stock. This dish also creates a sense of warmth, thanks to the grated ginger. If a milder ginger taste is preferred, you can make the chicken stock with a small chunk of ginger to begin with instead of adding grated ginger to the actual dish.