New Year’s Day is the biggest holiday in Japan. Family members come home to spent time together. A lot of stores are closed, and most of the offices are closed a couple days before and after New Year’s Day. We prepare special New Year foods called “osechi” (お節). A variety of foods which can be eaten cold (or room temperature) are prepared before the New Year so people don’t cook during the first three days of the New Year except for a soup with mochi called “zouni” (雑煮).
Although I’ve been living in the States for a long time, I like keep the tradition of Japanese New Year. I used to buy osechi from a Japanese supermarket here and maybe prepared just a dish or two. For the recent few years, I started making more and more dishes. Last year I made six dishes so I attempted to make more. I ended it making eight different kinds of dishes. Yay!
Today, I’ll show you how to make one of the dishes I made which is called “kouhaku namasu” (紅白なます). It’s pickled carrot and daikon radish. “Kouhaku” means white and red in Japanese which are the colors for celebration in Japan, and “namasu” means “pickled with vinegar.” This dish is pretty easy to make and tasty!
I’ll show you the step-by-step instructions below but the shorter version of the recipe and the listing of the ingredients are avialabe at the bottom of this blog post. Let’s begin!
- Cut carrot and daikon into 2 1/2 inches (6 centimeters) long and peel the skin
2. Slice them thinly first then cut them into matchsticks
It’s easier to cut them like this first so they will stand up.
Then slice them thin.
Cut thinly sliced carrot and daikon into matchsticks like these.
3. Sprinkle salt and massage well
4. When water comes out from carrot and daikon, squeeze the water out by hand. Discard the water.
5. Mix the pickling liquid ingredients well. Pour it over carrot and daikon and mix. It’s ready to eat when carrot and daikon absorb the liquid. There will be liquid remaining. I like to set aside in the refrigerator overnight.
The dish has a nice combination of sweet and sour. Many osechi dishes are cooked with soy sauce and sugar or other sweeters and have the same tone of flavor (sweet and salty). This pickled carrot and daikon dish adds a nice refreshing taste while you are eating osechi.
It will last a few days in the refrigerator. It’s easy to make but I only make this once a year. This is one of my must-have osechi dishes, and I make this every year. I hope you enjoy it!
- About ½ small daikon radish
- 1 carrot
- (Note: The ratio of daikon to carrot is about 4.5 to 1.0)
- A couple of pinches salt
- *Pickling Liquid*
- 4 tablespoon rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 2 teaspoon rice wine (mirin)
- Cut carrot and daikon into 2½ inches (6 centimeters) long and peel the skin
- Slice them thinly first then cut them into matchsticks
- Sprinkle salt and massage well
- When water comes out from carrot and daikon, squeeze the water out by hand. Discard the water.
- Mix the pickling liquid ingredients well. Pour the marinade over carrot and daikon and mix. It's ready to eat when carrot and daikon absorb the liquid.
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