Roasted Daikon

I first became aware of daikon (aka mooli, or white radish) through eating then recreating the classic Vietnamese baguette, banh mi. Banh mi come with various different fillings, but an absolute must is a layer of carrot and daikon pickle.

Once I started growing daikon, the experimenting started. And now I eat them raw, pickled, roasted, in “turnip cake” (the dim sum version, not actually a cake!) and more. This is Claire’s simple and delicious recipe for oven roasted daikon. We ate it with a huge portion of champ (using the diakon leaves). It was fab.

Serves 4

600g diakon
4 spring garlics
1 tsp crushed Sichuan pepper
½ tsp cumin seeds
2 tbsp olive oil
Seasoning

Preheat your oven at 210°C.

Top and tail your diakon, then cut into quarters lengthwise.

Next cut your spring garlic into 5-7 cm lengths.

Pop into a bowl, sprinkle over the crushed Sichuan pepper and cumin seeds. Pour over the oil and mix until the diakon and spring garlic are coated. If it looks a little dry to you, pour over a bit more oil.

Transfer onto a roasting tray, season generously with salt and pepper.

Roast for 25-30 minutes, check halfway 15 minutes in and turn to ensure an even colour.

If you don’t have any beautiful spring garlic, baby leeks are amazing or even a couple of small white onions would roast nicely alongside the daikon, both will give a lovely textural difference.