Fried Daikon Steaks with Dried Mushroom Gravy
Thick radish rounds browned in a skillet, under a sauce built from dried mushrooms and a spoon of flour.
- calories
- 420
- weight
- 9 oz
- cal / oz
- 47
- protein
- 7 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 35 min
- total time
- 50 min
- water
- 600 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Campfire coals
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Daikon radish | 1 large | peeled, cut into 12 rounds about 1/2 inch thick |
|---|---|---|
| Dried mushrooms | 1 oz | porcini, shiitake, or a mixed bag |
| All-purpose flour | 1/3 cup | for dredging and for thickening the sauce |
| Cooking oil | 1/4 cup | any neutral oil, or lard |
| Butter | 2 tbsp | unsalted; keeps a few days out of the cooler if wrapped |
| Dried onion flakes | 2 tbsp | |
| Bouillon | 1 cube | |
| Kale or other sturdy greens | 4 cups | packed loose in the cooler |
| Lemon juice | 1 tbsp | the plastic-bottle kind |
| Salt and black pepper | to taste | |
| Dried thyme or parsley | 1 tsp |
Method
- Pour 400 ml of boiling water over the dried mushrooms in a mug or bowl. Leave them 20 minutes. Keep the soaking liquid.
- Simmer the daikon rounds in salted water until a knife slides in with slight resistance, about 10 minutes. Drain and pat them as dry as you can. Wet daikon will not brown.
- Wipe the pot, heat the oil, and dredge each round in flour. Fry in batches until both sides are brown. Set them aside on a plate.
- Chop the soaked mushrooms. Add the butter and onion flakes to the pot, then the mushrooms. Cook until they stop releasing water.
- Sprinkle in a tablespoon of the leftover flour, stir it into the fat, then pour in the mushroom liquid and the crumbled bouillon. Simmer until it coats a spoon.
- Drop the greens into the sauce and let them wilt, about two minutes. Add the lemon juice, salt, pepper, and herbs.
- Lay the daikon on the greens and spoon the sauce over.
Daikon is mostly water, which is why it needs two cooks. The simmer softens the middle; the fry drives off surface moisture and gives the flour something to crisp against. Skip the drying step and you get pale, steamed rounds.
The original is a restaurant plate with a made-from-scratch ragu. Here the sauce comes from an ounce of dried mushrooms and their soaking water, which is the whole reason this works in camp: it is stock you carry dry. The flour left in the dredging bag thickens it, so nothing is wasted and there is one pot to wash.
Packing
Flour, onion flakes, bouillon, herbs, salt, and pepper go in one bag as a premix. Mushrooms in their own bag. Daikon and greens ride in the cooler; the radish keeps a week, the greens about three days.
Variations
- Turnips or rutabaga cut the same thickness behave the same way.
- A splash of red wine into the pot before the mushroom liquid deepens the sauce.
- Skip the butter and use more oil to make it vegan and dairy-free.
https://foragerchef.com/daikon-radish-steaks-with-wild-mushroom-ragu