when life gives you lemons....

sure, make you some lemonade. or, make grape juice, and then sit back and watch the world try to figure out how you did it. OR, just throw them at mean people.

but what do you do when life gives you radishes? a pile of baby daikon ones, to be precise.



first of all, the mountain of radish greens that were attached to the comparatively small pile of tubers could not just go into the compost bin. no ways! they just happen to be premium roughage, high in vitamin C and also a good source of folic acid, potassium and molybdenum (a healthy trace mineral). koreans usually use them for kimchi, but it was decided that the easiest way to deal with them was to blanch and freeze them all for future use (in soups, as a side, etc.).

whew! that done w/. on w/ the radish part. my favorite thing to do w/ daikon is to make a bunch of daikon cakes (delicious!), enough to freeze a batch. however, the radishes that we just harvested from the garden were quite small... some only the size of my pinky finger. so, i went w/ do chua, which literally translates to "pickled stuff" in vietnamese.

making do chua is quite simple: just julienne the daikon and some carrot. add salt, leave sit, rinse w/ cold water, cram it into a jar and then fill it to the top w/ a brine of sugary vinegar.


my reason for loving do chua is because i'm madly in love w/ banh mi, of which do chua is a key ingredient. it's like the best sandwich on earth, trust me. and i do it up veggie-yum-style w/ a marinated & fried tofu.




take a toasted torpedo roll (or baguette), smear some mayo on the insides, put sliced cucumbers, some bitter greens and the tofu on one side and then a hefty layer of do chua and fresh cilantro on the other. drizzle on some sweet chili sauce and sriracha, then go to heaven. :)