What Gives Kohaku Namasu Its Clean Crunch?🥕

Sudachi

Kohaku namasu is a traditional Japanese pickled daikon and carrot salad that brings crisp texture, bright color, and sweet vinegar flavor to the table. The daikon and carrot are usually cut into thin strips, salted briefly, then gently squeezed to remove extra moisture while keeping a clean crunch. A simple dressing made with rice vinegar, sugar, salt, and sometimes yuzu juice or citrus zest gives the salad a refreshing balance of sweetness and acidity. The red and white colors make kohaku namasu especially popular for New Year meals, but it also works as a light everyday side dish. The final salad is crisp, tangy, and easy to prepare ahead, pairing well with rice, grilled fish, karaage, miso soup, bento boxes, sushi, noodles, or other Japanese home-style dishes.

Transcript

00:00Hi, I'm Yuto and today on Statue, I'm going to show you how to make

00:03kohaku namasu, a delicious pickled daikon and carrot salad. Let's dive right in.

00:09I'm starting with a 200g block of daikon radish and I'm just gonna thin this like this so

00:15that I can cut it into matchsticks. To make a block like this, simply peel the outside

00:21and cut off four edges to make a block. You can save the cutoffs for stews or grate them

00:26to make oroshidaikon so that they don't go to waste. Once it's all cut into matchsticks,

00:32place them into a bowl. Next, take a 100g piece of washed and peeled carrot and cut off one edge

00:40so that it doesn't roll on the chopping board. Then we're going to repeat the cutting method

00:45from before, starting with thin slices and then cut them into matchsticks. Once that's done,

00:52place the carrot into the bowl and add half a teaspoon of salt. Mix it thoroughly by hand

01:05and then let it rest for 15 minutes so the salt can draw out the excess moisture.

01:11While we wait, let's make the pickling liquid. Prop up a Ziploc bag in a bowl and add 2 tablespoons

01:19of rice vinegar, 3 tablespoons of water, 2 tablespoons of sugar, quarter teaspoon of salt,

01:291 tablespoon of yuzu juice and quarter teaspoon of soy sauce. Scrunch back to mix them together,

01:37as you can probably guess, this is quite a sweet and vinegar pickle marinade.

01:50Finally, add a 5g piece of kombu and about 1 tablespoon worth of yuzu peel. If you can't get yuzu,

01:58orange or lemon, a good substitute.

02:01Okay, 15 minutes are up, so take your bowl of daikon and carrot, push them to one side and squeeze

02:09them while tilting the bowl. As you can see, quite a lot of water has come out. Pour it away

02:16so that

02:16the pickling liquid doesn't get watered down. Finally, take a Ziploc bag and place the carrot and daikon

02:25inside. Massage everything together to make sure all the ingredients are evenly distributed, then push

02:33the air out and seal the bag. Place this in the fridge and soak overnight before eating for the best

02:49flavour. And that's it, delicious Japanese pickled daikon and carrot salad infused with the flavour of

02:56citrus fruits. Thanks so much for watching. If you want to learn more about this recipe, check out

03:02the written version on my blog. The link is in the description. Have a great day.

Category

Transcript

Comments

Recommended