Monday, December 5, 2011

Guest Post: Rice Cooker Daikon Soup

Please welcome my very first guest blogger on Eating Deliciously!

Now is the time of year when I crave warm and comforting soups. I wish I could have a pot of soup simmering on the stove top all day but that is just not an option sometimes. Today, Kiri shares her recipe for Daikon Soup. Not only is this recipe delicious, it can be prepared in about 30 minutes using your rice cooker.


I love to travel, and I spent some time in Japan at 12 and 16 years old. The food has always stayed close to my heart, and when my holiday CSA share included daikon, I knew I wanted to make daikon soup.  Daikon radishes are a wonderful vegetable that is both healthy and low in calories, and it’s also often used as a home remedy for sore throats, which makes it the perfect soup ingredient when you have cold and need to combat it fast!

So here goes a very simple recipe that I cooked in a rice-cooker. You can absolutely do this in a normal pot, too, but I love the convenience of not having to check whether my soup is about to boil over when I am sick, anyways. The soup is warming and has a great earthy flavor thanks to the shiitake mushrooms The crunch from the daikon (think radish, or maybe apple) contrasts really well with the quite different crunch of the lotus root (think... potato chip?).

Ingredients:
- 2 medium daikon radishes
- 4 slices fresh ginger root
- 1 oz dried shiitake mushrooms
- 1 oz dried lotus root slices
- 4 cups water

Steps:
1. Soak dried shiitake and lotus root in the water for 10 minutes.



2. Meanwhile peel and slice daikon into 1/8 to ¼ inch thick slices, then halve the slices.


3. Set rice cooker to boil, and once water starts boiling, add ginger slices and daikon. Boil for 20 minutes.


4. Enjoy and hope for throat improvement!




 About the Author:
Hi, I'm Kiri from Healthy Foodie Travels. I am a fresh-baked Ph.D. in Microbiology and Molecular Biology, and in my spare time love to travel and cook meals I encountered abroad - healthily if possible. I'm also a German immigrant to the U.S., happily married to my American wife, owner/slave of a rescued cat, have a severe weakness for anything coconut and chocolate, and can be found on Twitter @kirikiri1