These are different than the pickled carrots and daikon recipe I previously posted. These pickled daikons are sweeter, and they're pickled with rice vinegar rather than distilled white vinegar for a much different flavor. I like these with gimbap, or dishes where I'm using roasted seaweed. The pickled carrots and daikon are more for Vietnamese sandwiches or noodle dishes but eat them any way you like!
Servings: Makes 4 cups (about 8 ounces of daikon) Sodium: 4.5 mg sodium per ounce Time: 20 minutes prep, 3-4 days for pickling
Ingredients:
8 ounces daikon radish, sliced into 1/4 inch sticks or 1/4 inch rounds
1 cup unseasoned rice vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup hot water
2 small chilis (optional)
1/4 teaspoon turmeric (optional, for coloring)
1) Combine rice vinegar, sugar, hot water, and chilis and turmeric (if using) in a medium bowl and stir to dissolve the sugar. I've used 3 tablespoons of sugar instead of 4 and while I can taste the difference, it's subtle, so if you're trying to cut down on sugar wherever you can, go with 3 tablespoons. The turmeric is just to make the daikon yellow. Use just a pinch for a very subtle hint of yellow, or up to 1/4 teaspoon to make it yellow like the daikon that you see in gimbap.
2) Peel and cut the daikon. Eight ounces of daikon is about a 6-7 inch piece that's about 2 inches in diameter. Cut them in long strips or in rounds, or half rounds, all about 1/4 inch thick. Put the daikon in the vinegar mixture. If the daikon isn't fully covered in the vinegar mixture, add a little more water. In the pictures below, the bottom left and bottom middle pictures have just a pinch of turmeric, while the last picture (bottom right) has 1/4 teaspoon of turmeric. This doesn't change the flavor, just the color.
Cover and refrigerate for 3-4 days before serving. They should keep refrigerated for at least a month.
A warning - pickled daikon is really stinky. When you open up your container of pickled daikon, you'll smell it from the other side of the house and it will stink. That's normal and part of the process, but the daikon is still really delicious and will add so much flavor to food.