Japanese Daikon Salad

I was never a huge fan of salads as a kid. Bland, bitter lettuce covered in a cloying sauce just wasn't something that got me excited. It wasn't until I discovered that salad can be so much more than dressed greens that it became one of my favorite things. A salad can be made with cooked vegetables, grains, tofu, even meat. But when I'm working with fresh vegetables, it's all about contrast in texture and taste. That's probably why this one hit home in all the right ways.

I know mitsuba and myoga might be hard to find unless you live near a Japanese supermarket, but what I wanted to show here is a framework. The daikon is the fresh, peppery, juicy element. Mitsuba provides a leafy herbal crunch with an aroma that's somewhere between celery and cedar. And myoga, the flower bud of a species of ginger, brings another kind of crisp that's more fibrous, with a warm, tropical fragrance that's hard to describe. If you can't find mitsuba or myoga, think about what would fill those roles with what's available to you.

The "dressing" here is really just more texture. Lots of toasted sesame seeds for nuttiness and crunch. Shiokonbu, which are thin strips of kombu seaweed simmered in soy sauce until deeply savory, then dried. They're chewy, and each bite rewards you with a gush of salty umami. Think of it as natural MSG. Then there are flakes of delicately crisp Korean nori. I know it seems like I've used the word crisp to describe ten different ingredients, but each one is a genuinely different kind of crisp.

One tip: prepare the vegetables a few hours ahead, cover them, and refrigerate. They'll crisp up and get refreshingly cold. But wait to add the sesame, shiokonbu, and nori until you're ready to serve, because the veggies will start to release moisture once you toss everything together. And if you end up with leftovers, don't toss them. They turn into a kind of quick pickle or daikon slaw overnight, which is honestly a great side dish the next day.