Daikon

Simmered radish is a sponge with no flavour of its own. This fills it.

A root with sweetness and no salt meeting salt with no sweetness.

Grated radish and ponzu is the standard dipping bowl for anything hot-pot.

Cold citrus oil on hot bland root; the peel does what a herb would elsewhere.

Sugar and alcohol carry the pepper away and leave the translucent sweetness.

Inosinate over a bland root multiplies whatever glutamate is already there.

Radish enzymes work on the fat while it braises; it is a tenderiser, not a side.

Cubed and salted, the heat ferments in rather than sitting on the surface.

Toasted fat coats the water content and gives a thin vegetable some weight.

Grated raw, its enzymes cut oily fish. That is why it comes on the plate.

Simmered until translucent, the radish takes on everything in the pot.

Grated raw, it thins the dipping sauce and adds a sharp watery bite.

Radish is mostly water; the paste gives it something to be seasoned by.

Raw radish is water and mustard oil. This turns it into a condiment.

Funk plus sugar in the pickle brine; the crunch survives, the rawness does not.

It drinks the braise and gives back a clean radish bitterness.

Raw grated radish is water and bite, which is all rare fish needs.

Watery pepper and dense sugar, cut into matchsticks and dressed with vinegar.

Both sweet and mineral; raw thin slices read as an extension of the shellfish.

Shared sulfur volatiles; shaved raw it carries truffle better than potato does.