Daikon Leaf Furikake (大根葉 振り掛け)

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Even though I grow my plants only in balcony boxes, I have several herbs (chives, mint, dill, basil, marjoram… and even mitsuba!) and such weird things as… daikon. A kind friend send me once several packages of grains from Japan and among those was daikon the big white radish). I suppose I should say rather daikon leaves, since only leaves were featured on the package and I suppose this variety is not supposed to have huge radishes, just like the parsley I have on my balcony, which contrary to my other parsley variety, doesn’t grow big roots.

Anyway, my daikon leaves grew extremely quickly and even though their taste was pleasant, I didn’t know what to do with them. Imagine my joy when Robert-Gilles, from Shizuoka Gourmet blog kindly offered to help me and posted a Daikon Leaves Furikake recipe. Thank you, Robert-Gilles, for this thoughtful gesture and for the excellent recipe! This furikake was so good I made it already several times.

Furikake (振り掛け) means “a condiment sprinkled over a dish” and is something between a condiment and a topping put over the rice (I must say I had problems with classifying it in my Western categories…). It was the first furikake I have ever made, but thought it was an excellent idea and will certainly look for some more furikake recipes in the future.

I have slightly modified the recipe and used some leftover rice combined with green peas instead of white rice. Dried shrimp or fish is not obligatory and since I didn’t have either, I skipped it.

It’s a great way to use leftover rice and to avoid throwing away the daikon leaves if your radish has them.

Preparation: 10 minutes

Ingredients (serves one):

a big handful of finely chopped daikon leaves with stems (they will shrink)

1 1/2 tablespoons sesame oil

2 tablespoons cooking sake

1 tablespoon mirin

1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce (or more if, like me you have a low-sodium soy sauce!)

3 tablespoons katsuobushi (shaved bonito)

2 tablespoons roasted white sesame seeds

(dried small shrimps or dried small fish)

Heat the sesame oil in a pan.

Fry the chopped leaves over high heat until they become soft.

Add sake, mirin and soy sauce, stirring before adding each of them.

Fry the fish or shrimp in a separate pan.

Add the fish/shrimp, the sesame seeds and katsuobushi to the leaves mixture and fry, stirring, for 30 seconds.

Put over a bowl of rice and serve.

(It can be kept in the fridge and served cold too).

Published by Sissi

16 Replies to “Daikon Leaf Furikake (大根葉 振り掛け)”

  1. I love Daikon no furikake (remember “no”? hehe)!! I have a post on Daikon no Furikake in my draft, but my picture was horrible so I am waiting to re-cook and take picture… Your photo is beautiful Sissi! Daikon color is still nice and green. I love this furikake. It’s very similar or almost same ingredients too. I make onigiri with this furikake. I’m envious with your balcony garden! Now I need to go buy daikon with leaves (here some places chop off leaves, so I have to go to a Japanese supermarket that sells organic daikon with leaves).

    1. Thank you so much Nami!!! I remember “no”, thank you for reminding me 😉 (Is is necessary in this name? I will have problems with the Japanese writing I enjoy adding so much…)
      I don’t know why it’s still green, I haven’t probably cooked it enough… But I liked it this way. I don’t like my picture really, but it was really difficult to photograph.
      Thank you for the onigiri idea! I must post my clumsy onigiri! I make it quite often (though never with daikon leaves).
      Here they always sell daikon without leaves (maybe 5 cm of stems left).

  2. Oh yummy… this looks a lot like the side dish you can order in some Japanese restaurants near here… you can usually get some pickled radish, some sort of pickled cucumber type… thing (not sure what it is :p) and some of this. I could just eat the whole plate of this stuff in one go. I wonder if I can find these seeds anywhere online to have a crack at making my own?!

    1. Thank you Charles! White radish is so widespread in France (I see it every time I go to the French supermarket) I think it must be available also in French gardening shops.

      1. True, true – not as common as the “radis noir” (which I never used actually… should give that a try sometime), but they are quite common in stores. I think I’ve seen seeds for sale for the radish, but not just the leaves/shoots before… or is it the same thing and I just pick it earlier?

        1. I have never tasted “radis noir”, it doesn’t look good and it I hate this “let’s eat the forgotten vegetables” movement this radish is part of. As one French chef said (Thierry Marx), some of them would better be left forgotten 😉 . Black radish is said to be very healthy, but it’s one of these vegetables eaten when people didn’t have much more to eat, so I am a bit sceptical. If someone tells me one day it’s delicious, I’ll try it.
          I assumed my daikon grains were a special variety (there were only leaves on the package photo), but maybe I’m wrong… As Nami says here, she uses the leaves from a regular radish, so no matter which variety you buy, you will have leaves. I even have small roots now, but they are very strong and weird (I have tasted one).

  3. I tried radish leaves in salad long time ago, it was uncooked if I remember correctly and really really delicious. This condiment (no?) or topping (no?) or side dish (maybe?) would go quite well with white fish I presume. Maybe this can be called warm salad?

    1. Thank you Mr. Three-Cookies for the ideas! I think I will simply create the category “furikake” when I have several of those 😉

    1. Thank you, Greg! I had’t heard of furikake either, that is before getting this recipe.

  5. I would have never thought of something so creative to do with radish leaves. We use a lot of radish in the Indian cusine too (grate it, add ginger and chilli and stuff inside a flat bread) and generally add the leaves to a lentil dish to be enjoyed with steamed rice…I love the idea of having them separately in a salad…looks beautiful….It looks so green and so fresh….

    1. Thank you Shilpa! I would have never thought either, before reading this on Shizuoka Gourmet blog! (It’s not really separate, I mean the rice is invisible, but it’s underneath).

    1. Hi Shen, thanks for your visit! I am sure you have access to many products I can only dream of here!

  7. Dear Sissi!
    Well done!
    The more for it that you aren’t enslaved to a basic recipre but try so well to adapt and play on it!
    Just looking at a programme on Montreux on Japanese TV (22;16 is the time! LOL)!
    I know one guy who does not know his kuck! (sorry for patronizing!)
    Best reagrds,
    Robert-Gilles

    1. Thank you so much, Robert-Gilles! I am always too tempted to modify everything… Sometimes it ends up in complete failures and sometimes it works. Thank you again for the recipe! (I would love to see the program about Montreux 😉 )

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