Daikon Salad

I am on a deadline here: Shabbos starts in less than an hour, immediately followed by Shavuos. Since my whole motivation for starting this blog was to document and share my Shavuos recipes (please see my post Hello, Beautiful People!), I’ve been cooking up a storm all week. I also took a bunch of pictures because some of those dishes are quite unusual. I promise to post all this after the holiday, but for now:

1. Sorry, Bloggingfundamentals, I stopped doing my homework two days ago. I will catch up after Shavuos.
2. Sorry, my fellow bloggers who have been so kind and generous with likes and comments. I would truly love to link with many of you and I am looking forward to doing it after Shavuos. Ditto for a widget Blogs I follow.
3. In about 10 minutes, right after I finish this post, I am signing off for three days. I am sorry that I will not be able to enjoy your wonderful posts, and I am sure my mailbox will be bursting at the seams on Monday night, and I’ll be kept busy all day on Tuesday as well.

So here goes – the shortest and easiest, yet delicious and very healthy salad that made its way to my Shavuos table because of its color. The first difference between our traditional Shavuos menu and the standard Jewish American fare is a combination of colors. Everything on our table has to be green, white, and golden. Green is the color of new harvest, white is dairy, which is traditionally eaten on the first day of this holiday, and golden are the first rays of the sun that herald bountiful summer. Of course, we didn’t have daikon radish in Eastern Europe, so we made do with first radishes, the regular ones, and that salad will also feature on my table and in a future post. But daikon, which is actually Chinese, rather than Japanese, and was introduced to Japan as a vegetable especially good for salads, is prized for its mild and sweet taste. Yet it does have a characteristic radish “bite”.

I combine it with finely diced onion and chopped cilantro, and season it with rice vinegar and sesame oil. Well, salt and pepper, too, and lots of pepper. That’s what brings out the bite. When I first started making it, I wanted to go all Oriental, so I tried soy sauce instead of salt and ginger instead of pepper. It came out quite tasty,  so it’s an option, but it darkens the salad, so I lose my white and green combination which is important to me.

Peel and grate the radish, add onion and cilantro, season and mix, and you are done. Go have a nice cup of green tea or something.

This is how it will look on my holiday table.  As I have already mentioned in my earlier posts, it is also my father’s Of Best Memory birthday, and this will be the first time that he will not be physically present at my table, but I am sure that his Neshoma, his spirit will be with us. Gut Yom Tov! Hag Sameach!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 daikon radish, about 1/2 lb
• 1/2 red onion, finely diced
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

PROCEDURE

Peel and grate radish, add onion and cilantro, season with rice vinegar and sesame oil, salt and pepper. Mix well.

Enjoy!