Daikon Steak with Garlic Soy Butter Sauce is quite a filling dish even though the main ingredient is just daikon. The daikon becomes very tender and nicely browned on both sides, just like a good steak. I like the contrast between the browned layer on outer edges and a semi-transparent flesh in the centre.
The garlic-flavoured soy butter sauce goes so well with the daikon. Use plant-based butter to make it a vegan dish.
Have you ever hesitated to buy a whole daikon? Well, don’t.
You might have hesitated to buy a whole daikon (white radish) because it would take many days to use it all. Daikon in season might be as big as 40-50cm / 15¾-19¾” long and about 8cm / 3⅛” in diameter.
I love daikon, and I have posted many daikon recipes. But most of them don’t use a large amount of daikon per serving, and many recipes use daikon together with other main ingredients. Daikon is sometimes used as a topping too.
But from today, you can buy a whole daikon without hesitation. Daikon Steak with Garlic Soy Butter Sauce is a great recipe for using up a large amount of daikon. Daikon is the hero of this dish, and each serving uses close to 300g / 10.6oz of daikon.
Special Techniques Used to Make Daikon Steak
Although I call it a steak, making this dish involves more than simply putting the daikon pieces in a frying pan and cooking them.
- Trim rounded edges of the daikon pieces, i.e. mentori. This prevents the edges from crumbling during cooking.
- Score a criss-cross pattern on both sides of the daikon so that it cooks faster and absorbs the flavour more easily. It also creates an attractive pattern when the surface is browned.
Mentori and scoring done to the daikon discs.
- Pre-cook the daikon until it becomes tender. Since each piece is 3cm / 1⅛” thick, it would take a very long time to soften if cooked only in the frying pan.
- Brown both sides of the daikon pieces in garlic-infused oil, then add butter and continue cooking until it becomes almost burnt. The daikon is finished by simmering in the sauce, so it needs to be well browned beforehand.
Overall, it is an easy dish to make and surprisingly delicious for such a simple dish.
What’s in my Daikon Steak with Garlic Soy Butter Sauce
- Daikon cut into 3cm (1⅛”)-thick discs
- Dashi stock
- Cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
- Oil
- Butter
- Mirin
- Cooking sake
- Soy sauce.
My daikon was about 8cm / 3⅛” in diameter and weighed about 560g / 1.2lb in total. I think the diameter of 7-8cm / 2¾-3⅛” is ideal for the recipe, given the required thickness of the daikon. Please don’t reduce the thickness of the daikon, as it will affect the cooking time and the intensity of the flavour.
In my video, I used konbu dashi, but you can also use dashi stock made with bonito flakes.
To make this dish vegan, use konbu dashi and plant-based butter.
How to Make Daikon Steak with Garlic Soy Butter Sauce
The major steps are: prepare the daikon, pre-cook it, sauté it, and finish it in a garlic butter soy sauce. See the video.
- Peel the skin off the daikon discs and chop the skin into small squares.
- Trim the edges of the daikon discs (mentori) and score both sides.
- Put the daikon discs, chopped skin, and the dashi stock in a pot, and cook until the daikon becomes tender.
- Remove the daikon discs and strain the dashi stock through a sieve.
- Sauté the daikon in a frying pan until both sides are browned, then add the butter and continue sautéing.
- Add the reserved dashi stock, mirin, cooking sake, and soy sauce, and cook until the sauce is reduced to about 4 tablespoons.
- Transfer the daikon to a serving plate and drizzle the sauce over it.
Instead of pre-cooking the daikon discs in a pot, you can cook them in the microwave if you prefer. Put the ingredients in a large, microwave-safe bowl or container, and microwave for 15–20 minutes.
The dish consists of just a couple of pieces of daikon, but it is quite filling and rich. I hope you give this Daikon Steak with Garlic Soy Butter Sauce a try.
Yumiko
Watch How To Make It
Daikon Steak with Garlic Soy Butter Sauce is quite a filling dish, although the main ingredient is just daikon. The daikon is very tender and nicely browned on both sides (like a good steak). The garlic-flavoured soy-butter Sauce goes so well with the daikon. See the Video.
Use plant-based butter to make it a vegan dish.
- 12cm / 4¾" long daikon , 7-8cm / 2¾-3⅛" in diameter (note 1)
- 600ml / 1.3pt konbu dashi (note 2)
- 2 cloves garlic , thinly sliced
- 1½ tbsp oil
- 15g / 0.5oz butter , diced (note 3)
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tsp mirin
- 2 tsp cooking sale
-
Cut the daikon into four 3cm (1⅛”)-thick discs. Make sure the cut surfaces are flat and not bumpy so that the daikon browns evenly with no uncooked patches.
-
Peel the skin from each daikon (do not discard the skins) and trim the round edges of the daikon discs (mentori).
-
Score a criss-cross pattern on the flat surfaces of the daikon on both sides. The scoring should be about 5mm / 3⁄16" apart and 5mm / 3⁄16" deep.
-
Cut the peeled skins into square pieces.
-
Put 4 daikon discs, dashi stock, and chopped daikon skin pieces in a pot. Bring it to a boil.
-
Reduce the heat to medium, place a lid on and cook for about 30-40 minutes until the daikon pieces become tender (note 5).
-
Transfer the daikon pieces to a tray or plate. Put the dashi stock through a sieve and reserve it for later use.
-
Put the oil and garlic in a frying pan and heat over medium-low heat for about 2½ - 3 minutes, until the edge of the garlic slices start browning. Remove the pan from the heat.
-
Put the oil through a sieve lined with kitchen paper and collect the oil. You should get minimum of 1 tablespoon of garlic-infused oil.
-
If there are brown bits of the fried garlic in the pan, wipe them off.
-
Put the garlic-infused oil into the frying pan and heat over medium heat.
-
Place the daikon pieces in the pan, flat side down, and cook for about 3 minutes, until the bottoms of the daikon pieces are well browned or almost charred (note 6).
-
Turn them over and cook in the same way.
-
Add the butter to the pan and cook for about 30 seconds. Turn the daikon over and cook for a further 30 seconds.
-
Add 200ml / ⅘ cup / 6.7fl oz of the reserved dashi stock, mirin, cooking sake, and soy sauce to the pan. Cook for a couple of minutes with a lid on, then remove the lid.
-
Continue cooking for another couple of minutes until the liquid reduces to about 3-4 tablespoons. Baste the liquid over the surface of the daikon pieces while cooking.
-
Remove the pan from the heat, transfer two pieces of daikon to each serving plate. Pour the garlic soy butter sauce over them. Serve while hot.
1. My daikon was 560g / 1.2lb in total. The length of the daikon is critical here since it is cut into 3cm-thick discs. The diameter can vary slightly. If you can only find a daikon with a small diameter, you may want to make 6 pieces of 3cm (1⅛”)-thick-thick daikon, i.e. 18cm / 7 1⁄16" daikon before cutting. If your daikon is very large, you may only need one 3cm-thick daikon slice per serving.
2. Instead of konbu dashi, you can use standard dashi stock made with bonito flakes.
3. For a vegan dish, use plant-based butter.
4. Instead of pre-cooking the daikon discs in a pot, you can cook them in the microwave if you prefer. Put the ingredients in a large, microwave-safe bowl or container, and microwave for 15–20 minutes.
5. Check if a thin bamboo skewer easily goes through the daikon piece.
6. While cooking, gently press down the centre of each daikon piece with a spatula to ensure the centre of the daikon touches the pan and gets browned. You may also want to check the browning of the daikon a couple of times and change the position of the daikon pieces if they are not browning evenly.
7. You can cook the daikon ahead of time, up to the end of the Pre-cook Daikon steps, and store the daikon and the broth in the fridge.
8. It is best to serve the daikon steak immediately, but it can keep for a few days in the fridge. The longer you keep the daikon steak, the more sauce the daikon absorbs into the daikon, and you might find it a touch salty.
Meal Ideas
A typical Japanese meal consists of a main dish, a couple of side dishes, a soup and rice. I try to come up with a combination of dishes with a variety of flavours, colours, textures and make-ahead dishes.
Since the main dish contains no meat, I picked side dishes that contain protein to go with the Daikon Steak. But if you want to make the entire meal meat-free, you can choose the alternative dishes suggested in the list below.
- Main: Daikon Steak with Garlic Soy Butter Sauce – today’s recipe, can make ahead.
- Side dish 1: Green Beans with Tofu Dressing (Shira-ae) – you can make it ahead, but the beans might discolour slightly.
- Side dish 2: Japanese Pasta Salad (Spaghetti Salad) – or Tomato and Seaweed Salad with Sesame Soy Dressing if you want a vegetarian option.
- Soup: Tonjiru (Pork and Vegetable Miso Soup) – or Japanese Vegetable Soup (Kenchinjiru) if you want a vegetarian option.
- Rice: Cooked Rice.
Leave a Reply