Cranberry Cured Daikon

We have been looking at the transfer of flavors.  We have cured and brined fish and meat though curing vegetables is something we have overlooked.  That is not quite accurate as we have preserved vegetables by pickling them with assorted flavors from passionfruit to pine needle.  What we have not done is pack vegetables in a seasoned medium in order to intensely flavor them, until now.

We have taken cranberry-miso a condiment from our pantry and packed peeled daikon radish in the blend and then vacuum sealed the mixture and let the radish cure for about a week.  We then pulled the radishes out of the cranberry-miso and rinsed them off.  The daikon had evolved.

The radishes are orange-red in color stained and flavored by the cranberry, preserved by the miso and an interesting blend between pickled, cured and marinated.  The radishes are crisp and juicy with a clear expression of these blended flavors.

*and now we can begin to ask questions about combinations and possibilities.  What about curing: cauliflower in grape miso?  apples cured in smoked paprika and kasu (sake lees)?  pumpkin or butternut squash cured in coffee and salted molasses?  pears cured with honey and lime pickle puree?  The surface is scratched, now we need to find delicious.

Comments

[JD]

Dumb questions - did you refrigerate this whilst curing? Did you use any salt, or just the miso?

Another good candidate for this process would be parsnip - they're great at this time of the year.

Also, have you thought about "curing" something in its own essence? Sticking with the parsnip idea, perhaps a parsnip cured in parsnip puree would result in an extreme, deep expression of its own natural flavor.

This seems like a great technique for someone like me that's still dipping their toes into your unconventional techniques...keep that idea factory running, guys.

[Ore]

You two are just awesome! Really, you are at the forefront of this ship you're on. The other night we were at Providence and the dessert was shaped in the form of a knot - I wonder where that cam from!?! You rock!

[Judith Klinger]

So, you need the salt as the preservative? Whether it was miso or salt?
If $$$$ was no object, would something like a Gastrovac accomplish the same thing?

[JD]

:-(

no tips?

[H.Alexander Talbot]

We used a blend of about 70% cranberry and 30% miso

We could have just wrapped the daikon in a ziploc bag. I do not believe a gastrovac would have made a major difference, though the vacuum sealing pulls the marinade into the flesh of the radish.