Daikon Radish & Snow Pea Salad

By chefmegan | May 1, 2012

Simple, but thoughtful vegetable salads are one of my favorite things to both make and eat. I love pairing two or three vegetables together with a simple dressing that lets the produce shine. I especially like taking an ethnic influence to marry the flavors, like I did in this Japanese combination.

I make chopped salads just about everyday. They are a great way to enjoy vegetables. I love leafy green salads, but sometimes I would rather skip the greens and focus on other veggies. Now that spring is upon us, there are many delightful salad ingredients to choose from. I chose to make this Japanese vegetable salad, because many of the ingredients we think of as Japanese, are available in the early spring.

Simple Things Done Well

This heading is one of my cooking philosophies, but really applies well with composing vegetable salads. Think about these guidelines when you get out your salad bowl.

A perfect chopped vegetable salad will:
1.feature a few ingredients picked at the height of their season with contrasting flavors, textures and colors
2.highlight the texture and appearance of vegetables using appropriate knife work
3. have a dressing that enhances the vegetables, but doesn’t steal the show or drown the ingredients. Using restraint with dressings can be difficult, but remember that you can always add more.

Using the guidelines for this salad

1. I used two great spring ingredients – radish and snow peas. Radish can be spicy and peas are (hopefully) sweet. They are both crunchy, but in different ways. These ingredients are a beautiful color combination.
2. I decided to cut the daikon in thin coins so that you can see the beautiful pattern on the inside of the radish. The snow peas were cut in a julianne – the classic matchstick cut. These two shapes contrast well and create a delightful arrangement.
3. To dress the vegetables I used minimal amounts of oil and vinegar, that highlighted the natural flavors of the vegetables.